The Heirs of Columbus is a 1991 novel by Gerald Vizenor

Gerald Vizenor

Gerald Robert Vizenor is a Native American writer, and an enrolled member of the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe, White Earth Reservation. One of the most prolific Native American writers, with over 30 books to his name, Vizenor also taught for many years at the University of California, Berkeley, where...

 that, in the face of the 500th anniversary of Christopher Columbus

Christopher Columbus

Christopher Columbus was an explorer, colonizer, and navigator, born in the Republic of Genoa, in northwestern Italy. Under the auspices of the Catholic Monarchs of Spain, he completed four voyages across the Atlantic Ocean that led to general European awareness of the American continents in the...

' arrival in America, inverts the historical record by re-imagining Columbus as a descendant of Mayans

Maya peoples

The Maya people constitute a diverse range of the Native American people of southern Mexico and northern Central America. The overarching term "Maya" is a collective designation to include the peoples of the region who share some degree of cultural and linguistic heritage; however, the term...

 and Sephardic Jews who now wants to return home, that is, to America. Meanwhile, his modern-day descendants, the "heirs" of the title, are trying to bring his bones home. Critic Louis Owens considers this novel to be Vizenor "[i]n his best trickster

Trickster

In mythology, and in the study of folklore and religion, a trickster is a god, goddess, spirit, man, woman, or anthropomorphic animal who plays tricks or otherwise disobeys normal rules and conventional behavior. It is suggested by Hansen that the term "Trickster" was probably first used in this...

-satirist mode" as he accomplishes "a brilliant appropriation of the master symbol of Euroamerican history".

The novel employs many of Vizenor's themes and stylistic devices: the use of mixedblood central characters, the use of parody, the deliberate, playful revision of history (as one reviewer describes it, "History jousts with myth", which history coming in "a poor second"), and the emphasis on the healing power of stories. This novel also includes characters from Vizenor's other books, including Bearheart, Griever de Hocus, Nanabozho

Nanabozho

In Anishinaabe mythology, particularly among the Ojibwa, Nanabozho is a spirit, and figures prominently in their storytelling, including the story of the world's creation. Nanabozho is the Ojibwe trickster figure and culture hero...

, Almost Browne and the Trickster of Liberty

The Trickster of Liberty

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. The novel is a collection of stories about the mixedblood descendants of Luster Browne and their lives on the...

, as well as numerous references to figures from contemporary Native American literary culture, including Arnold Krupat

Arnold Krupat

Arnold Krupat, Ph.D. is an American author and Professor of Literature at Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville, New York. His work has been published in Nineteenth-Century Fiction, The Quest, and Sarah Lawrence Journal...

, N. Scott Momaday

N. Scott Momaday

Navarre Scott Momaday is a Kiowa-Cherokee Pulitzer Prize-winning writer from Oklahoma, New Mexico, and Arizona.-Background:...

, Leslie Marmon Silko

Leslie Marmon Silko

Leslie Marmon Silko is a Native American writer of the Laguna Pueblo tribe, and one of the key figures in the second wave of what Kenneth Lincoln has called the Native American Renaissance...

, Louise Erdrich

Louise Erdrich

Karen Louise Erdrich, known as Louise Erdrich, is an author of novels, poetry, and children's books featuring Native American heritage. She is widely acclaimed as one of the most significant writers of the second wave of what critic Kenneth Lincoln has called the Native American Renaissance...

, Thomas King

Thomas King

Thomas King, CM is a noted novelist and broadcaster who most often writes about North America's First Nations. He is an advocate for First Nations causes. He is of Cherokee and Greek descent...

, and James Welch.