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Early Life stage👶
Early Life stage👶
Sherman Alexie, who was born October 7, 1966, grew up in a Spokane Indian Reservation in Wellpinit, Washington. Alexie was a key contributor to Indigenous Nationalism literature, following after his ancestors. His parents were Lillian and Sherman Alexie, Sr. After Alexie was born, he had a major disease called hydrocephalic. A disease where he had water built up within the inside of his brain; he had to undergo a brain surgery at 6 months old that he was not expected to survive from. Despite all the struggles, as in him having many seizures at his young ages. Alexie decided to immerse himself early in reading and storytelling rather than physical sports or typical tribal youth activities. He still managed to push through all his obstacles and became very successful within school even with his health problems. Wanting to be successful in his life, he decided to transfer from his teenage school, the Indian Reservations. After the Reservations, he went to Reardan Highschool for better education and opportunities. Reardan Highschool was almost an all-white school, with only very few Native Americans. While Alexie attended an almost all white race school, he faced many opportunities even though a lot of traumas came with being one of the few Native Americans. Alexie graduated in 1985 and attended Gonzaga College on a scholarship. Alexie ended up at Washington State University after two years to study pre-med. Alexie ended up not liking his major and decided to switch it. A reason behind this is because of his love for poetry and writing. After all of his schooling he received the Washington State Arts Commission Poetry Fellowship and the National Endowment for the Arts Poetry Fellowship. Growing up Alexie suffered from alcoholism but was able to get better and gave up drinking at the age of 23 and has been sober ever since.
Literary Career🏫
Literary Career🏫
Alexie's writing mainly was motivated by his personal experiences while growing up. He struggled from poverty, alcoholism, historical trauma, humor, resilience, identity, and the intersection of Native and mainstream cultures. One year after college, in 1992 his career first started by publishing his first two poetry poems, I Would Steal Horses and The Business of Fancydancing. In these first two poems he expressed humor in order to demonstrate the struggles within the Indians that live on the Reservations. The message behind these two poems are very deep and help show the common struggles like poverty, racism, and alcoholism. The Business of Fancydancing ended up being a big hit and he sold over 10,000 copies of it as one of his first poems. Alexie went on to make 9 more poetries from 1992-2009. Alexie created his first short story in 1993, The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven. Within these books, they provide many different short stories that are interconnected. He mentions many different real life characters and Alexie continues to use these strategies throughout his short stories. Another example of a short story that had a big impact, was Ten Little Indians in 2004, this book changed many different perspectives on Native Americans from white people. During his first novel, Reservation Blues (1995), he manages to include some of the same people from The Lone Ranger. At first he used his friends from the Indian Reservation when they were growing up, now in his book they are well in their thirties and are living their own lives now. Sherman Alexie also went on to write 3 more excellent novels: Indian Killer in 1996, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian in 2007, and Flight in 2007. These 3 novels gave Alexie a lot of attention within the Poetry community.
Awards🏆
Awards🏆
Sherman Alexie has received many different awards throughout his career, coming from novels all the way up to film and artistic awards. For his first major award, in 1993 Alexie received the Pushcart Prize from his creation of This Is What It Means to Say Phoenix, Arizona. This reward later contributed to the making of Smoke Signal, which turned out to be a reward making film he created. One year later, in 1994, the creation of The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven achieved him the PEN/Hemingway Award. In 1998, his creation of Smoke Signals, based off of his 1993 novel, was the first feature film written, directed, and co-produced by Native Americans. This film was able to win two different awards for Alexie including, Audience Award and Filmmakers Trophy. Alexie also received the National book reward in 2007 for his best seller, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian. This book uses humor in order to show the lives of an Indian growing up. Many schools all over the world show this book off because of how informative, and reliable its information is. It provides insight on the Indians' lives throughout the Reservations. Later in 2010, he also received the PEN/Faulkner Award. The creation of the War Dances, a collection of short stories, poems, and short works, is the main reason behind this reward.
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