Sherman Alexie is a Spokane/Coeur d’Alene Indian, and he grew up on the Spokane Reservation located in Wellpinit, WA. Due to brain surgery at six months-old (he was diagnosed as hydrocephalic at birth) he was not expected to live. But he survived to become one of the most prolific American Indian authors of this era.

Prior to writing novels, Sherman studied poetry at Washington State University. Shortly after graduating, and receiving his second fellowship, two of his poetry collections were published, The Business of Fancydancing and I Would Steal Horses.

He has also written a number of best selling novels. One of my favorites is The Lone Ranger and Tonto Have A Fist Fight In Heaven. The book has 22 short stories that are interconnected  and follow the lives of Victor Joseph and Thomas Builds-the-Fire, two American Indians who live on the Spokane Indian Reservation.

The following is an excerpt from one short story entitled Indian Education; First Grade, which is a series of short vignettes, each describing grades 1 through 12 in Victor’s education. This is the first one;

” My hair was too short and my U.S. Government glasses were horn-rimmed, ugly, and all that first winter in school, the other Indian boys chased me from one corner of the playground to the other…They stole my glasses and threw them over my head, around my outstretched hands, just beyond my reach, until someone tripped me and sent me falling again, face down in the snow. I was always falling down; my Indian name was Junior Falls Down. Sometimes it was Bloody Nose or Steal-His-Lunch. Once it was Cries-Like-a-White-Boy, even though none of us had seen a white boy cry.”

Great book by a great author!

For more information about Alexie and for a list of his works: Here

Tags: novels. poetry, Sherman Alexie, Spokane/Coeur d' Alene Indians, the Lone Ranger, Tonto, Writer