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Sherman
Alexie Sherman Alexie was born in 1966 in
Spokane, Washington and grew up on the Coeur d'Alene Indian
Reservation. As a child he suffered from the
neurological condition, hydrocephalus (or "water on the
brain") which resulted in 7 years in and out of hospitals.
During this time, Alexie became a voracious reader, reading
almost every book in his school's library.In 1985, Sherman Alexie began attending Gonzaga University, but later transferred to Washington State University where he began writing both short stories and poetry. After a small magazine published some of his work, he gained the confidence to seriously pursue a career as a writer. Alexie's work focuses on his experiences growing up on the reservation and contemporary Native American life. He often writes of the poverty and alcoholism that plague many Native Americans. Another theme in his work is the search for identity as in his novel Indian Killer in which a Native American child is adopted by a white family and is frustrated not knowing his tribal roots. This novel also deals with racial tension in the city of Seattle after a serial killer begins scalping his white victims. Alexie's stories, and in fact, his public speaking appearances, are often filled with humor, although he claims to be the least funny member of his family. In an interview, Alexie said: "You know if you have people laughing, you can talk about very difficult subjects." Which is exactly what he does. A favorite story he tells during speaking appearances concerns an evening when he was walking down the street in Seattle after the September 11th tragedy and a man in a pickup yelled out the window "Go back to your own country!". Alexie wanted to run after the man and yell "You first!" One of his short stories from The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven was made into a screenplay for the first all-Indian movie. The film Smoke Signals was the first movie produced and directed by Native Americans with a Native American cast. It earned rave reviews and introduced Alexie to the world of Hollywood where he has been called in as a consultant to ensure authenticity in scenes involving Native Americans. Ten Little Indians, is his third collection of short stories and it finds him in familiar territory writing about Native Americans, humor, love, family, and one of his favorite things - basketball. From: Contemporary Authors Online, Gale, 2006. Reproduced in Biography Resource Center. Farmington Hills, Mich.: Thomson Gale. 2006. http://galenet.galegroup.com/servlet/BioRC Click here to see what Sherman Alexie titles are held by the Escondido Public Library *This is an incomplete bibliography. The Escondido Public Library does not own all of the books to which Alexie has written. Please see a Reference Librarian to get this author's complete bibliography or go to Alexie's official website at http://www.fallsapart.com. On the Web
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