Sherman Alexie facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Sherman Alexie
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Alexie in 2016
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| Born | October 7, 1966 Spokane, Washington, U.S. |
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| Nationality | Spokane Tribe of the Spokane Reservation, American |
| Genre | Native American literature, humor, documentary fiction |
| Literary movement | Indigenous Nationalism |
| Notable works | • The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian • Smoke Signals • Reservation Blues • The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven • You Don't Have to Say You Love Me: A Memoir • War Dances |
| Notable awards | American Book Award 1996 National Book Award 2010 |
Sherman Joseph Alexie Jr. (born October 7, 1966) is a Native American writer and filmmaker. He writes novels, short stories, and poems. His work often shares his experiences as an Indigenous American person. He grew up on the Spokane Indian Reservation in Washington state. Today, he lives in Seattle, Washington.
One of his most famous books is the young adult novel, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian (2007). This book is partly based on his own life. It won the 2007 U.S. National Book Award for Young People's Literature. It also won the Odyssey Award in 2008 for best audiobook for young people. Alexie himself read the audiobook.
He also wrote The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven (1993). This is a collection of short stories. It was later made into the movie Smoke Signals (1998). Alexie wrote the movie's script. His first novel, Reservation Blues, won an American Book Award in 1996. His 2009 collection of stories and poems, War Dances, won the 2010 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction.
Contents
Growing Up: Sherman Alexie's Early Life
Alexie was born on October 7, 1966, in Spokane, Washington. He spent his childhood on the Spokane Indian Reservation. This reservation is located west of Spokane. His father, Sherman Joseph Alexie, was from the Coeur d'Alene tribe. His mother, Lillian Agnes Cox, had ancestry from the Colville, Choctaw, Spokane, and European American groups.
When Alexie was six months old, he had brain surgery. He was born with hydrocephalus. This condition means there was too much fluid in his brain. The surgery was successful, and he did not have brain damage. However, he did have other health effects. For example, he had seizures until he was seven years old. Because of his health, he could not join in many activities that other Native American boys did.
Alexie's father sometimes left the family for days. To support her six children, his mother, Lillian, worked hard. She sewed quilts, worked as a clerk at the Wellpinit Trading Post, and had other jobs.
Life at the reservation school was tough for Alexie. Other kids often teased him. Teachers sometimes treated him badly. They called him "The Globe" because his head was larger than usual. This was due to his hydrocephalus as a baby. Despite these challenges, Alexie was an excellent student. He read everything he could find, even car repair manuals.
Education: Learning and Growing
To get a better education, Alexie decided to leave the reservation for high school. He went to school in Reardan, Washington, which was 22 miles away. He was the only Native American student there. Alexie did very well in his classes. He also became a star player on the basketball team, the Reardan High School Indians. He was chosen as class president and was part of the debate team.
In 1985, his success in high school earned him a scholarship. He went to Gonzaga University, a Catholic university in Spokane, Washington. Alexie first planned to become a doctor. But he found he was too squeamish during dissections in his anatomy classes. He then tried studying law, but that did not feel right either. He felt a lot of pressure to do well in college. This made him feel very worried and stressed. Alexie found comfort and interest in his literature classes.
In 1987, he left Gonzaga and enrolled at Washington State University (WSU). There, he took a creative writing class. It was taught by Alex Kuo, a respected poet. Alexie was going through a difficult time in his life. Kuo became a helpful guide for him. Kuo gave Alexie a book of Native American poetry called Songs of This Earth on Turtle's Back. Alexie said this book changed his life. It showed him how to connect with literature in a new way. He felt very inspired by reading poems written by Native Americans.
Career: Writing and Filmmaking
Alexie published his first book of poetry and stories in 1992. It was called The Business of Fancydancing: Stories and Poems. After this success, he left college, just three credits short of a degree. However, in 1995, Washington State University gave him an honorary bachelor's degree.
In 2005, Alexie helped start Longhouse Media. This group teaches filmmaking skills to young Native Americans. It also uses media to share culture and create positive change. Alexie has always supported programs that help young Native people.
Literary Works: Stories and Poems
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Alexie's stories have appeared in many collections. These include The Best American Short Stories and Pushcart Prize. His writings have also been published in various literary magazines and online.
Themes: What Alexie Writes About
Alexie's poems, stories, and novels explore the challenges and experiences of Native American people. He writes about life on and off the reservation. He often uses humor and wit to make his serious messages easier to understand.
According to writer Sarah A. Quirk, Alexie asks three main questions in his work:
- "What does it mean to live as an Indian in this time?"
- "What does it mean to be an Indian man?"
- "What does it mean to live on an Indian reservation?"
The main characters in his books often struggle with their own identities. They try to find their place in American society.
Poetry: A Way to Express Himself
Early in his career, Alexie received important awards for his poetry. These included the Washington State Arts Commission Poetry Fellowship. He also got the National Endowment for the Arts Poetry Fellowship. His first two poetry books, I Would Steal Horses and The Business of Fancydancing, came out in 1992. In these poems, Alexie uses humor to show the difficulties faced by Native Americans today. Even with humor, the main message is very serious. He won The Chad Walsh Poetry Prize in 1995.
The Business of Fancydancing: Stories and Poems (1992) was very popular. Alexie compares his writing to "fancydancing." This is a bright and colorful style of competitive powwow dancing. Old Indian dances were often private. But fancy dance was created for public entertainment. Alexie feels that writing gives him a similar way to express himself.
Other poetry collections by Alexie include:
- Old Shirts and New Skins (1993)
- First Indian on the Moon (1993)
- Seven Mourning Songs For the Cedar Flute I Have Yet to Learn to Play (1994)
- Water Flowing Home (1996)
- The Summer of Black Widows (1996)
- The Man Who Loves Salmon (1998)
- One Stick Song (2000)
- Face (2009)
Short Stories: Connected Lives
Alexie published his first prose book, The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven, in 1993. This book has many short stories that are connected. Some characters appear in later books by Alexie. This book can be seen as a coming-of-age story. It follows two main characters, Victor Joseph and Thomas Builds-the-Fire. They grow from being innocent to having more life experience.
Ten Little Indians (2004) is another collection of nine short stories. These stories are set around Seattle. They feature Spokane Indians from different parts of city life. In this book, Alexie challenges common ideas that people have about Native Americans. He also shows his characters discovering who they are.
War Dances is a collection of short stories, poems, and other short works. It won the 2010 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction.
Other short stories by Alexie include:
- Superman and Me (1997)
- The Toughest Indian in the World (2000)
- "What You Pawn I Will Redeem" (2003)
- Blasphemy: New and Selected Stories (2012)
Novels: Journeys and Identity
In his first novel, Reservation Blues (1995), Alexie brings back characters from The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven. Thomas Builds-the-Fire, Victor Joseph, and Junior Polatkin grew up together on the Spokane Indian reservation. In Reservation Blues, they are now adult men in their thirties. Some of them are musicians in a band. The book explores how characters deal with unfair treatment in universities and in society. It shows how white professors sometimes lecture Native Americans about their own cultures, even when they don't know much about them.
Alexie's young adult novel, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian (2007), is a coming-of-age story. It started as a memoir about his life on the Spokane Indian reservation. The novel is about a fourteen-year-old Indian boy named Arnold Spirit. Many parts of the story are based on Alexie's own life. For example, Arnold was born with hydrocephalus and was often teased. The story also shows what happens after Arnold transfers to Reardan High School, which Alexie also attended. The novel has received great reviews and is still very popular.
Flight (2007) also has a teenage main character. The narrator calls himself "Zits." He is a fifteen-year-old orphan with mixed Native and European heritage. He has moved between many foster homes in Seattle. The novel explores past experiences. Zits briefly sees into other people's lives after he thinks he is shot while doing something wrong.
Memoir: Sharing His Story
Alexie's memoir, You Don't Have to Say You Love Me, was released in 2017. A memoir is a book about a part of the author's life. This book takes readers deep into Alexie's youth on the Spokane Indian Reservation. Alexie canceled his book tour for this memoir in July 2017. He said promoting the book was too hard emotionally. In September 2017, he decided to continue the tour with some changes. He said he would be interviewed instead of performing the book. He also said he would not answer any questions he did not want to answer.
Films: Bringing Stories to the Screen
In 1998, Alexie's film Smoke Signals became very well known. Alexie wrote the movie's script based on his short story collection, The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven. Characters and events from his other works also appear in the film. Chris Eyre, a Cheyenne-Arapaho director, made the film. It had mostly Native American actors and crew.
The movie is about a road trip. Two young Native American men, Victor Joseph (Adam Beach) and Thomas Builds the Fire (Evan Adams), leave the reservation. They go to get the body of Victor's dead father (Gary Farmer). During their trip, the movie shows parts of their childhood through flashbacks. The film won top awards at the Sundance Film Festival. It received high praise from film critics.
The Business of Fancydancing, written and directed by Alexie in 2002, explores what it means to be Native American. It looks at topics like Native identity, living on or off the reservation, and cultural involvement. The movie's title refers to the main character's choice to leave the reservation. He makes a living by performing for mostly white audiences. Evan Adams, who played Thomas Builds the Fire in Smoke Signals, stars again. He plays an urban gay man with a white partner. The death of a friend brings the main character back to the reservation. There, he meets his childhood friends again. Alexie hired an almost all-female crew to make this film. Many actors made up their lines as they went along, based on real events in their lives.
Other film projects include:
- 49? (writer, 2003)
- The Exiles (presenter, 2008)
- Sonicsgate (participant, 2009)
Personal Life
Sherman Alexie is married to Diane Tomhave. She is a citizen of the Three Affiliated Tribes of the Fort Berthold Reservation. She has Hidatsa, Ho-Chunk, and Potawatomi heritage. They live in Seattle with their two sons.
Style: How Alexie Writes
Alexie's writing style is not only based on traditional Native American forms. He combines parts of popular culture, Native American spirituality, and the realities of reservation life. He uses these elements to create his characters and their world. Alexie often uses humor in his work. He does this as a way for Native Americans to survive culturally. It helps them deal with stereotypes from the larger American culture. It also helps them deal with the idea that all Native American tribes are the same.
Awards and Honors
- 1992
- National Endowment for the Arts Poetry Fellowship
- 1993
- PEN/Hemingway Award for Best First Book of Fiction for The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven
- 1994
- Lila Wallace-Reader's Digest Writers' Award
- 1996
- American Book Award for Reservation Blues
- Granta Magazine: Twenty Best American Novelists Under the Age of 40
- New York Times Notable Book for Indian Killer
- 1999
- The New Yorker: 20 Writers for the 21st Century
- 2001
- PEN/Malamud Award
- 2007
- National Book Award, Young People's Literature, for The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian
- 2009
- American Library Association Odyssey Award for The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian audiobook
- 2010
- PEN/Faulkner Award for War Dances
- Native Writers' Circle of the Americas Lifetime Achievement Award
- Puterbaugh Award
- California Young Reader Medal for The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian
- 2013
- The John Dos Passos Prize for Literature
See also
- List of writers from peoples indigenous to the Americas
- Louise Erdrich
- Native American Renaissance
- Native American studies
- There There (novel)
Images for kids
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Alexie reading at a journal launch at Arizona State University in 2016
