SOURCE: "Follow the Trickroutes: An Interview with Gerald Vizenor," in Survival This Way: Interviews with American Indian Poets, Sun Tracks and the University of Arizona Press, 1987, pp. 287-310.

In the interview below, Vizenor discusses his ideas on language, the role of storytelling in Native American culture, and the role of the trickster in Native American literature.

Since his first publications, Gerald Vizenor has been recognized as a multifaceted writer. His books include collections of haiku poetry, short stories, a novel, reworkings of Anishinabe traditional tales, and several nonfiction works. A member of the White Earth Reservation, his teaching has taken him to the University of Minnesota, the University of California at Berkeley, the Southwest and, just prior to this interview, China.

The interview with Gerald Vizenor took place on one of those cool but sunny days which characterize Berkeley, California. There Vizenor and his wife, Laura Hall, were...