Sherman Alexie
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| Born: | October 07, 1966 Spokane, Washington |
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| Occupation: | Novelist Filmmaker Comedian Poet Performance Artist |
| Nationality: | Spokane/Coeur d'Alene/American |
| Genres: | Native American Literature, Humor, Documentary Fiction |
| Literary movement: | Indigenous Nationalist |
Sherman Joseph Alexie, Jr. (born October 7, 1966 in Spokane, Washington) is an award-winning and prolific author and occasional comedian. Much of his writing draws on his experiences as a modern Native American. He lives in Seattle, Washington.
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[edit] Biography
A Spokane/Coeur d'Alene Indian, Alexie grew up on the Spokane Indian Reservation in Wellpinit, Washington, about 50 miles northwest of the city of Spokane.
He was born hydrocephalic ("with water on the brain"), and, at six months of age, underwent brain surgeries to correct the condition. His initial prognosis was grim; even after he survived the operations, doctors predicted that he would suffer mental retardation. However, in spite of suffering from seizures and uncontrollable bedwetting, Alexie proved to be an extremely intelligent child, who says he learned to read at the age of three and by the age of five read adult novels such as John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath.
Alexie's intelligence caused problems with his peers at the reservation school, who saw him as an outcast and frequently bullied him. He opted to attend a nearby all-white high school in Reardan, Washington, about 20 miles south of Wellpinit instead, and there he excelled in academics and athletics, becoming a star basketball player and popular student.
Alexie graduated from high school in 1985 and entered Gonzaga University in Spokane on a scholarship. After two years at Gonzaga, he transferred to Washington State University (WSU) in Pullman. He claims that he initially planned to be a doctor but after fainting several times in his human anatomy class, he decided to choose a different career. He graduated with a B.A. in American Studies, becoming one of the first members of his tribe to earn a University degree.
[edit] Writing career
Since 1991 Alexie has published 17 books, and has found success as a writer of novels, short stories, poems, and screenplays. Alexie's writing is marked by harsh depictions of reservation life, autobiographical elements, colorful use of humor, political outspokenness, seamless invocation of history and popular culture, and social commentary. He has also dabbled in stand-up comedy and music.
In college, Alexie was encouraged to write by his poetry professor, Alexander Kuo. His rise in the world of writing was rapid: he earned a Washington State Arts Commission Poetry Fellowship in 1991 and the National Endowment for the Arts Poetry Fellowship in 1992.
Only a year after graduating from WSU, shortly after receiving his second fellowship, two of Alexie's poetry and short story collections were published: The Business of Fancydancing (Hanging Loose Press) and I Would Steal Horses (Slipstream Press). In the introduction to The Business of Fancydancing, Alex Kuo wrote:
Throughout this collection, there is an emphasis on balancing carefully, and a willingness to forgive, as in the subsistence forays into the sestina in “Spokane Tribal Celebration, September, 1987,” and “The Business of Fancydancing.” The history these stories and poems remember goes beyond the individual; it is the healing that attends the collective space and distance of both writer and reader, which will hopefully “make everything work/so everyone can fly again.” Here, on a long jumpshot arcing into the distance, there is enough light to push back the darkness for several generations to come.''
Alexie's literary successes prompted him to give up drinking, an issue with which he had struggled in college. At age 23 he gave up drinking and has been sober since.
In 1993, Atlantic Monthly Press published his first complete collection of short stories, The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven. The collection earned him a PEN/Hemingway Award for Best First Book of Fiction and a Lila Wallace-Reader's Digest Writers' Award. It was reissued, with the addition of two new stories, in March 2005 by Grove Atlantic Press.
Atlantic Monthly Press published Alexie's first novel, Reservation Blues, in 1995. He was honored by the UK's Granta magazine as one of the Best Young American Novelists and won the Before Columbus Foundation's American Book Award, as well as the Murray Morgan Prize.
In June 1998, Taos, New Mexico, Alexie competed in the World Poetry Bout Association (WPBA) and won his first World Heavyweight Poetry Bout, beating out world champion Jimmy Santiago Baca. He successfully defended his title three times, becoming the first and only poet to hold the championship for four consecutive years.
Alexie, alongside seven others, presented in the PBS Lehrer News Hour Dialogue on Race with President Clinton in 1998. Jim Lehrer moderated the discussion, which aired on PBS on July 9, 1998. Alexie has also been featured on Politically Incorrect and 60 Minutes II. He wrote a special segment on insomnia and his writing process called "Up All Night." for NOW with Bill Moyers.
At the Northwest Comedy Festival in Seattle in April 1999, Alexie made his stand-up debut at the Foolproof. In July 1999, he was the featured performer at the Vancouver International Comedy Festival's opening night gala.
In February 2003, Alexie participated in the Museum of Tolerance project, "Finding Our Families, Finding Ourselves." This exhibit showcasted the diversity within the personal histories of several noted Americans, and celebrated the shared experiences common to being part of an American family, encouraging visitors to seek out their own histories and heroes. He presented the Museum of Tolerance project as a guest on the Oprah Winfrey Show in January 2003, in the episode "Our Big American Family."
Alexie has also served as a juror for several writing awards, including the 1999 O. Henry Award, the 2000 inaugural PEN/Amazon.com Short Story Award, the Poetry Society of America's 2001 Shelley Memorial Award and the Poets and Writers "Writers Exchange 2001" Contest. He was a member of the 2000, 2001, 2005 & 2006 Independent Spirit Awards Nominating Committees. He has also served as a creative adviser to the Sundance Institute Writers Fellowship Program and the Independent Feature Films West (which has now been changed to Film Independent) Screenwriters Lab. Alexie most recently was a juror for the 2005 Rae Award.
At the University of Washington's 2003 commencement ceremony, Alexie was the commencement speaker. He was an Artist in Residence at the university and taught courses in American Ethnic Studies in 2004 and 2006. Recently, he earned the 2003 Regents' Distinguished Alumnus Award, Washington State University's highest honor for alumni. He also holds honorary degrees from Seattle University (doctor of humanities, honoris causa - 2000) and Columbia College, Chicago (1999). Alexie has also worked as a mentor for the PEN Emerging Writers program.
Alexie's stories have been included in several prestigious short story anthologies, including The Best American Short Stories 2004, edited by Lorrie Moore; and Pushcart Prize XXIX of the Small Presses. Alexie also served as the guest editor for the winter 2000-01 issue of Ploughshares
Alexie's most recent book, Flight was published in April 2007. He is currently working on a young adult novel, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, which is set to be published by Little, Brown in September, 2007.
[edit] Collaboration with Jim Boyd
Alexie has collaborated with several artists including Jim Boyd, a Colville Indian. Boyd performed as a musician while Alexie was a stand up comic and reader during their performances. Together, the two recorded an album, which contains songs from the book Reservation Blues. The album was also under this same title. A track off the album by the name of “Small World” appeared on Talking Rain: Spoken Word & Music from the Pacific Northwest and Honor: A Benefit for the Honor the Earth Campaign. Boyd and Alexie opened for the Indigo Girls at a concert to benefit the Honor the Earth Campaign.
[edit] Collaboration with Chris Eyre and Smoke Signals
Alexie collaborated with Chris Eyre, a Cheyenne/Arapaho Indian in 1997. Eyre first heard of Alexie as a graduate student at New york University’s film school. The two decided to collaborate on a film project. The screenplay was chosen from Alexie’s short story, "This is What it Means to Say Phoenix, Arizona," out of The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven. The film was titled Smoke Signals and was released under Shadow Catcher Entertainment at the Sundance Film Festival in January 1998. The film won the Audience Award and the Filmmakers Trophy.
Smoke Signals then found its way to Miramax Films and was released in New York and Los Angeles on June 26 and across the country on July 3, 1998. In ’99, the film received a Christopher Award, presented to the creators of artistic works nominated for the Independent Feature Project/West 1999 Independent Spirit Award for Best Screenplay.
[edit] Criticism
Sherman Alexie's work has had only a few criticisms.
- "Through a brilliant use of interlocking characters, themes and phrases, Alexie crafts The Business of Fancydancing's 40 poems and five stories into a seamless, searing tribute to the people of the Spokane and Coeur d'Alene reservations.
- Alexie's writing builds upon the naked realism and ironic wonder of Blackfeet/Gros Ventre writer James Welch [...][and] adds a surrealist twist to convey comparable irony in his poem "Evolution" [...] By the end of the poem, Buffalo Bill has taken "everything the Indians have to offer" and then changes the shop's sign from pawn dealer to 'THE MUSEUM OF NATIVE AMERICAN CULTURES.'"
Kadwick, Kent "In a Review of The Business of FancyDancing and Old Shirts & New Skins"
- "[...]it's business, a fancydance to fill where it’s empty.' The pieces in this book are orally driven and very accessible. In contrast, Alexie’s recent book of poetry has been received more positively by the literary community than in Indian country. He explains that the poems are more literary and less accessible to the broader audience he wants to reach.
de Ramirez, Susan Berry Brill "Reviews of The Summer of Black Widows and The Business of Fancydancing"
- "Alexie shows a variety of other strengths as well. He is, for one thing, a richly comic poet [...] But as always in the greatest comic art, the humor that makes us laugh is always underlaid with a sad wisdom."
Robert L. Berner
Review of Water Flowing Home
by Kelley Blewster:
In truth, Sherman Alexie's literary output can't be circumscribed by a label focusing on its racial themes. An elegant little chapbook of love poems titled Water Flowing Home (1996) by itself belies such a description
Accessible, lyrical, heartfelt, these are the kind of poems that do what poetry's meant to do: evoke and recall emotion rather than simply play with the language. No, Alexie covers much, much richer terrain than just race relations; but it would be nearly impossible for readers to come away from most of his works without feeling more self-conscious about the color of their skin. Poems such as "Exact Drums" offer a moment of grace amidst the gravity of much of his subject matter -- they are welcomed like the release of a pent-up breath.
from Kelley Blewster, "Tribal Visions." Biblio 4.3 (March 1999): 22.
Review of Old Shirts and New Skins
Alexie . . . here emerges as a Native poet of the first order. He captures the full range of modern Native experience, writing both with anger and with great affection and humor. Detailing the continuing deprivation and colonialism, the poet pointedly asks, "Am I the garbageman of your dreams?" and defines Native "economics": "risk" is playing poker with cash and then passing out at powwow. Focusing on the Leonard Peltier case, Alexie exposes the ineffectualness of both white Indian-lovers and some Native leaders in "The Marion Brando Memorial Swimming Pool": "Peltier goes blind in Leavenworth. . . / and Brando sits, fat and naked, by the Pacific ocean. There was never / any water in the damn thing." General Custer is allowed to give an accounting of himself, as Alexie links genocide of America's indigenous peoples with Viemain, the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire and other acts of warfare and destruction. Alexie writes comfortably in a variety of styles. Many of the poems turn on grim irony, putting the author himself in the traditional role of the trickster. Adrian Louis provides a powerful foreword, and Elizabeth Woody's moody illustrations add to the volume's impact.
from Publishers Weekly 1 Feb. 1993: 87.
[edit] Voice Interviews and Recordings (Real Player)
[edit] Interviews
- http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/race_relations/OneAmerica/transcript.html - News hour (Sherman, Clintion, Lehrer)
- http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/MRC/alexie.html Sending Cinematic Smoke Signals: An Interview with Sherman Alexie (by Dennis West and Joan M. West)
A List of Articles and Interviews of Sherman Alexie: http://www.fallsapart.com/interviews.html
[edit] Poetry
- The Business of Fancydancing (poetry, 1991)
- I Would Steal Horses (poetry, 1992)
- Old Shirts and New Skins (poetry, 1993)
- First Indian on the Moon (poetry, 1993)
- Seven Mourning Songs For the Cedar Flute I Have Yet to Learn to Play (poetry, 1993)
- Water Flowing Home (poetry, 1995)
- The Summer of Black Widows (poetry, 1996)
- The Man Who Loves Salmon (poetry, 1998)
- One Stick Song (poetry, 2000)
- Dangerous Astronomy (poetry, 2005)
[edit] Fiction
- The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven (short stories, 1993)
- Reservation Blues (novel, 1995)
- Indian Killer (novel, 1996; referred to by Alexie as "a feel-good novel about interracial murder")
- The Toughest Indian in the World (short stories, 2000)
- Ten Little Indians (stories, 2003)
- Flight (novel, 2007)
[edit] Awards
- 1991: Washington State Arts Commission Poetry Fellowship
- 1992: National Endownment for the Arts Poetry Fellowship
- New york Times Book Review Notable book of the Year for "The Business of Fancydancing"
- Slipstream Chapbook Contest Winner for "I Would Steal Horses"
- 1993: Lila Wallace-Reader's Digest Writers' Award
- Ernest Hemingway Foundation Award Citation
- PEN/Hemingway Award: Best First Book of Fiction Citation Winner for "The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven"
- Great Lakes College Association: Best First Book of Fiction Award
- 1994: Bram Stroker Award Nomine for "Distances"
- 1996: Before Columbus Foundation: American Book Award
- Morgan Murray Prize for "Reservation Blues"
- Granta Magazine: Twenty Best American Novelist Under the Age of 40
- 1998: Tacoma Public Library Annual Literary Award
- New York Times Notable Book for Indian Killer
- People Magazine: Best of Pages
- Winner, 17th Annual World Championship Poetry Bout
- 1999: New Yorker: 20 Writers for the 21st Century
[edit] Films
- Smoke Signals (writer, 1998; adapted from a short story, "This is What It Means to Say Phoenix, Arizona" in Lone Ranger and Tonto)
- The Business of Fancydancing (writer and director, 2002)
- 49? (writer, 2003)
[edit] See also
- List of writers from peoples indigenous to the Americas
- Native American Renaissance
- Native American Studies
[edit] External links
- Official Sherman Alexie Site
- Condensed biography with quotes and references to works
- Sherman Alexie at the Internet Movie Database
- Full Sherman Alexie biography with summary of "Reservation Blues" and helpful quotes.
- Alexie audio reading
- Academy of American Poets Alexie page
- Interview with Alexie
- ToxicUniverse.com interview
- Lesson plans at Web English Teacher
Categories: Cleanup from October 2006 | All pages needing cleanup | 1966 births | American film directors | American novelists | American poets | American screenwriters | Coeur d'Alene tribe | Living people | Native American writers | Roman Catholic writers | People from Seattle | People from Spokane | Washington writers | English-language film directors
