This volume examines the resurgence of tricksters - ubiquitous shape-shifters who will dwell on borders, at crossroads and between worlds - on the contemporary cultural and literary scene. Depicitng a chaotic, multilingual world of colliding and overlapping cultures, many of America's most prominent women writers are writing tricksters. Taking up works by Maxine Hong Kingston, Louise Erdrich and Toni Morrison, the author weaves together current critical discources on marginality, ethnicity, feminism and folklore, with the aim of illuminating a "trickster aesthetic" central to non-Western storytelling traditions.