Essays on Sherman Alexie

October 7, 1966

Author, poet, screenwriter, filmmaker

Native American literature, humor, documentary fiction

Indigenous Nationalism

• 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

• American Book Award 1996
• National Book Award 2007
• PEN/Faulkner 2010

October 7, 1966 (age 55)

Sherman Alexie Jr. is a Native American novelist, short story writer, poet, screenwriter, and filmmaker. His writings draw on his experiences as an Indigenous American with ancestry from several tribes. He grew up on the Spokane Indian Reservation and now lives in Seattle, Washington.

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

Alexie's poetry, short stories and novels explore themes of despair, poverty, violence and alcoholism among the lives of Native American people, both on and off the reservation. The protagonists in most of his literary works exhibit a constant struggle with themselves and their own sense of powerlessness in white American society.

In 2010 Alexie won a number of literary awards, including the PEN/Faulkner Award for War Dances (2009; another mix of prose and poetry) and the 2010 Lifetime Achievement Award from the Native Writers’ Circle of the Americas.

“If you let people into your life a little bit, they can be pretty damn amazing.”
“Life is a constant struggle between being an individual and being a member of the community.”
“Poetry = Anger x Imagination”