The Trickster of Liberty

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The Trickster of Liberty is a 1988 novel by Gerald Vizenor that acts as a prequel to his earlier novels Bearheart: The Heirship Chronicles and Griever: An American Monkey King in China . [1] The novel is a collection of stories about the mixedblood descendants of Luster Browne and their lives on the White Earth Indian Reservation. The novel continues Vizenor's focus on mixedbloods and tricksters and includes characters from the previous novels, including Griever de Hocus and China Brown from Griever and Eternal Flame from Bearheart. [1]

Gerald Vizenor American writer

Gerald Robert Vizenor is an Anishinaabe writer and scholar, and an enrolled member of the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe, White Earth Reservation. Vizenor also taught for many years at the University of California, Berkeley, where he was Director of Native American Studies. With more than 30 books published, Vizenor is Professor Emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley, and Professor of American Studies at the University of New Mexico.

<i>Bearheart: The Heirship Chronicles</i> novel by Gerald Vizenor

Bearheart: The Heirship Chronicles is a 1990 novel by Gerald Vizenor; it is a revised version of his 1978 debut novel Darkness in Saint Louis Bearheart. The novel is a part of the Native American Renaissance and is considered one of the first Native American novels to introduce a trickster figure into a contemporary setting, even as he drew on trickster traditions from various Native American tribes, such as Nanabozho (Anishinaabe) and Kachina (Pueblo).

Griever: An American Monkey King in China is a 1986 novel by Gerald Vizenor. It won the 1986 New York Fiction Collective Award and the 1988 American Book Award. The book is important both because it establishes the trickster figure of Griever de Hocus, whom Vizenor had created in his 1985 story "Luminous Thighs" and whom he would use again in The Trickster of Liberty, and because Vizenor takes Native American stories and themes outside the Americas and into China, establishing a connection to Chinese trickster figures, most notably Sun Wukong the Monkey King.

The novel develops Vizenor's rejection of social science theories that claim the trickster figure reflects an idea or model; to the contrary, Vizenor argues that the trickster is a purely linguistic phenomenon. [2] The novel also develops Vizenor's attack on the "invented Indian", including a commentary on the fate of Ishi and a satire on Native American scholars who perpetuate stereotypes of Indian-ness. [3]

Ishi last of Yahi people

Ishi was the last known member of the Native American Yahi people from the present-day state of California in the United States. The rest of the Yahi were killed in the California genocide in the 19th century. Ishi, who was widely acclaimed as the "last wild Indian" in America, lived most of his life isolated from modern American culture. In 1911, aged 50, he emerged near the foothills of Lassen Peak in Northern California.

The novel was republished under the title The Trickster of Liberty: Native Heirs to a Wild Baronage in 2005. [3]

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References

  1. 1 2 Owens, Louis. Understanding the American Indian Novel pp. 250-254.
  2. ↑ Velie, Alan R. "Gerald Vizenor" in Dictionary of Native American Literature, ed. Andrew Wiget. pp. 499-500.
  3. 1 2 Blaeser, Kimberly M. "Gerald Vizenor" in The Cambridge Companion to Native American Literature, ed. Joy Porter and Kenneth M. Roemer. p. 265


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