Editing Gerald Vizenor (section)

==Early life==
Gerald Vizenor was born to a mother who was [[Swedish-American]]<ref name="helstern">{{cite book
|last= Helstern
|first= Linda Lizut
|chapter=Shifting the Ground: Theories of Survivance in ''From Sand Creek'' and ''Hiroshima Bugi''
|editor=Gerald Vizenor
|title= Survivance: Narratives of Native Presence
|location= Minneapolis
|publisher= Minnesota UP
|date= 2008
|page= 167 }}</ref> and a father who was Anishinaabe. When he was less than two years old, his father was murdered in a homicide that was never solved.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Vizenor |first1=Gerald Robert |title=Interior Landscapes: Autobiographical Myths and Metaphors |date=1990 |publisher=University of Minnesota Press |location=Minnesota (U.S.) |isbn=978-0-8166-1848-4 |pages=28–32 |language=en}}</ref> He was raised by his mother and paternal [[Anishinaabe]] grandmother, along with a succession of paternal uncles, in [[Minneapolis]] and on the [[White Earth Reservation]]. His mother's partner acted as his informal stepfather and primary caregiver. Following that man's death in 1950, Vizenor lied about his age and at 15 entered the Minnesota [[United States National Guard|National Guard]].

Honorably discharged before his unit [[Korean War|went to Korea]], Vizenor joined the army two years later. He served with occupation forces in Japan, with that nation was still struggling to recover from the vast [[Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki|destruction of the nuclear attacks]] that ended World War II. During this period, he began to learn about the Japanese poetic form of [[haiku]]. Later he wrote ''Hiroshima Bugi'' (2004), what he called his "[[kabuki]] novel."<ref>{{cite book |series= Horizons anglophones |editor=Simone Pellerin |last1=Rigal-Cellard |first1=Bernadette |chapter=Behind History Another History: ''Hiroshima Bugi'' |title=Gerald Vizenor |date=2007 |pages=165–179 |url=https://books.openedition.org/pulm/12928?lang=en |publisher=Presses universitaires de la Méditerranée |location=Montpellier |language=en, fr |isbn=978-2-84269-830-0|doi=10.4000/books.pulm.12753 }}</ref>

Returning to the United States in 1953, Vizenor took advantage of [[G.I. Bill]] funding to complete his undergraduate degree at [[New York University]]. He followed this with postgraduate study at [[Harvard University]] and the [[University of Minnesota]], where he also undertook graduate teaching. After returning to Minnesota, he married and had a son.