Sherman Alexie on Native American Authors

Native American Authors


Sherman Alexie, 1966 –

Spokane

Coeur d’Alene

Sherman Joseph Alexie Jr. is a notable Native American writer whose stories, novels, poems and movie scripts about the lives of contemporary American Indians have garnered international acclaim and high literary praise. As the child of a Coeur d’Alene father and a Spokane mother, Alexie has Salish Indian ancestry and spent his childhood on the Spokane Indian reservation in Washington. Unable to participate in physically strenuous activity due to ill health, he became a voracious reader, eventually attending an all-white high school where he was an honors student and class president.

His experiences on the reservation and in the world outside inspired The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian (2007), a first-person narrative that won him the National Book Award for Young People’s Literature. He has won numerous other fellowships and awards, including the Lila Wallace-Reader’s Digest Writers’ Award, the Stranger Genius Award, and has been cited as “One of 20 Best American Novelists Under the Age of 40” from Granta magazine.

Awards and Honors

National Endowment for the Arts Poetry Fellowship, 1992
PEN/Hemingway Award, 1993
Lila Wallace-Reader’s Digest Writers’ Award, 1994
American Book Award, 1996
Granta Magazine: Twenty Best American Novelists Under the Age of 40, 1996
New York Times Notable Book, 1996
The New Yorker: 20 Writers for the 21st Century, 1999
Wordcraft Circle Writer of the Year, 1999
PEN/Malamud Award, 2001
National Book Award, Young People’s Literature, 2007
American Library Association Odyssey Award, 2009
PEN/Faulkner Award, 2010
Native Writers’ Circle of the Americas Lifetime Achievement Award, 2010
Puterbaugh Award, 2010
California Young Reader Medal, 2010
The John Dos Passos Prize for Literature, 2013

Online resources by or about Sherman Alexie:

Artist: Sherman Alexie
Author: Canku Ota
Type: authorbio
Description: An article about Alexie from the 6/17/00 issue of Canku Ota – A Newsletter Celebrating Native America.

URL: http://www.turtletrack.org/IssueHistory/Issues00/Co06172000/CO_06172000_Alexie.htm

Modern American Poetry: Sherman Alexie
Author: Robert M. Luscher
Type: authorbio
Description: Site is divided into sections such as: General Commentary by Sherman Alexie, Reviews of Poetry Collections, Bibliography, and External Links.

URL: https://www.modernamericanpoetry.org/poet/sherman-alexie

The Official Sherman Alexie Site
Author: Sherman J. Alexie
Type: authorbio
Description: This site includes a biography, articles, photos and many other resources on Alexie and his works.

URL: http://fallsapart.com/

Oregon Live: Frontlist — Four writers sitting around talking
Author: Don Campbell and Daisy Dailey
Type: authorbio
Description: Excerpts from an early 1998 discussion between Sherman Alexie, Gish Jen, Cristina Garcia and David Foster Wallace at the Portland Arts and Lectures.

URL: https://lectures.org/event/sherman-alexie-cristina-garcia-gish-jen-david-foster-wallace/

This Is What it Means… A Conversation with “Smoke Signals” writer Sherman Alexie
Author: Mike Jones
Type: authorbio
Description: An indieWire.com interview with the author. Includes a photo.

URL: https://www.indiewire.com/1998/01/this-is-what-it-means-a-conversation-with-smoke-signals-writer-sherman-alexie-83207/

Books by Sherman Alexie:

Alexie, Sherman. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian
Little, Brown Young Readers, 2007.
Genre: Fiction
Language: English
Audience: Youth
ISBN: 0316013684

Alexie, Sherman. The business of fancy dancing : stories and poems
New York : Hanging Loose Press, 1992.
Genre: Short Stories
Language: English
Audience: Adult
ISBN: 0914610007 (pbk.) / 0914610244 (hc.)

Alexie, Sherman. First Indian on the Moon
Brooklyn : Hanging Loose Press, 1993.
Genre: Fiction
Language: English
Audience: Adult
ISBN: 9781882413027

Alexie, Sherman. Indian Killer
New York : Atlantic Monthly Press, 1996.
Genre: Fiction
Audience: Adult
ISBN: 087113652X

Alexie, Sherman. The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven
New York : Atlantic Monthly Press, 1993.
Genre: Short Stories
Language: English
Audience: Adult
ISBN: 0871135485

Alexie, Sherman. The man who loves salmon
Boise, Idaho : Limberlost Press, 1998.
Language: English
Audience: Adult
Genre: Poetry
ISBN: 0931659396

Alexie, Sherman. Old shirts and new skins
Los Angeles : American Indian Studies Center, 1993.
Genre: Poetry
Language: English
Audience: Adult
ISBN-10: 0935626360

Alexie, Sherman. One stick song
Brooklyn : Hanging Loose Press, 2000.
Genre: Poetry
Language: English
Audience: Adult
ISBN: 1882413768

Alexie, Sherman. Reservation blues
New York : Grove/Atlantic, 1995.
Genre: Fiction
Language: English
Audience: Adult
ISBN: 0871135949

Alexie, Sherman. Smoke signals
New York : Hyperion, 1998.
Language: English
Audience: Adult
ISBN: 0786883928

Alexie, Sherman. The Summer of Black Widows
Brooklyn, NY : Hanging Loose Press, 1996.
Genre: Poetry
ISBN: 1882413342

Alexie, Sherman. The toughest Indian in the world : stories
New York : Atlantic Monthly Press, 2000.
Genre: Short Stories
Language: English
Audience: Adult
ISBN: 0871138018

Alexie, Sherman. Water flowing home
New York : Atlantic Monthly Press, 1996.
Audience: Adult



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