Understanding Contemporary American Literature
2 total works
This book offers an introduction to the radical Native American writer's complex vocabulary and vision. Winner of the 1988 American Book Award for his novel ""Griever: An American Monkey King in China"", Gerald Vizenor is a radical, even revolutionary, voice among contemporary Native American writers. Deborah L. Madsen offers a comprehensive overview of Vizenor's work in all literary genres as she explores the themes, images, and stylistic devices that define Vizenor's challenging and significant body of work. Madsen begins by addressing the key contexts in which Vizenor's work may be interpreted: his biography, the Anishinabe tribal context of his thought, and the contemporary postmodern intellectual environment within which he writes. Madsen also explores her subject's neologisms, the complex lexicon he invents to convey his view of Native America. From there she highlights Vizenor's achievements in each of the major literary genres in which he writes - journlaism, tribal history, cultural criticism, poetry, drama, and fiction - focusing on representative texts in each instance to provide detailed readings of Vizenor's distinctive style and language.
Exploring the work of six notable authors, this text reveals characteristic themes, images and stylistic devices that make contemporary Chicana writing a vibrant and innovative part of a burgeoning Latina creativity.