The University of New Mexico
NEWS RELEASE
Contact: Carolyn Gonzales 277-5920, cgonzal@unm.edu, 249-4669
Nov. 22, 2005
UNM's Vizenor Receives Western Literature Award
University of New Mexico American Studies Professor Gerald Vizenor recently received the Distinguished Achievement Award by the Western Literature Association. The award was presented at their annual conference in Los Angeles last month.
Vizenor, who received the award with Joan Didion, has published more than 20 books, including narrative histories, essays, fiction and poetry. He is founder and series editor of the American Indian Literature and Critical Studies series at the University of Oklahoma Press. W ith Diane Glancy he is series editor of Native Storiers: A Series of American Narratives, at the University of Nebraska Press.
Vizenor taught at the University of California, Berkeley, for more than 20 years, and joined the UNM Department of American Studies this academic year. He currently teaches “The Atomic Bomb: Los Alamos to Hiroshima,” and next semester will teach a graduate seminar on “Human Rights and Genocide.” His most recent books include “Fugitive Poses: Native American Indian Scenes of Absence and Presence,” and two novels, “Chancers,” and “Hiroshima Bugi: Atomu 57.”
His novel “Griever: An American Monkey King in China,” won the American Book Award. “Bear Island: The War at Sugar Point,” a narrative poem, will be published next year by the University of Minnesota Press.
Vizenor is member of the White Earth Reservation in Minnesota.
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