Sherman+Alexie

Sherman Alexie's life, while not quite the same as Junior's from his book //The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian//, does have many parallels. He was born on the Spokane Indian Reservation in Wellpinit, Washington in 1966. He was born with "water on the brain", or hydrocephalus, but somehow managed to survive without mental retardation. However, he did get a lot of seizures, and to cope with this, he read a lot. He was such an extraordinary reader that he read //Grapes of Wrath// by John Steinbeck when he was just 5 years old. Similar to the book he wrote, he left his Indian school, Wellpinit, for a school off the reservation, Reardan, when he found his mom's name in his textbook. He was the only Indian in Reardan, other than the mascot. Sherman Alexie is also a big fan of basketball,as evidenced by all of the basketball that was in his book. He enjoys watching both college and professional basketball, and plays some himself. He was a fan of the Seattle Super Sonics before they moved to Oklahoma City in 2008, and was active in trying to keep them in Seattle. However, he was unsuccessful and they are now the Oklahoma City Thunder. In 1985, he started at Gonzaga University but transferred to Washington State 2 years later. There, he was encouraged to write a lot of poetry, and eventually graduated with a BA in American Studies. He then started to write his first works of poetry. The theme in the book of the problems of drinking may rise from his own past experiences. He had a major drinking problem in college, but stopped drinking when he was 23 and has been sober ever since. In 1992, he married Diane Tomhave, and they have had two sons, Joseph and David. Alexie has won many awards for his works. His works include many different genres, including poetry, collections of short stories, and fiction for adults and young adults. He also wrote the screenplay for the movie //Smoke Signals//.

Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian Quizzes Image Project Self-Portrait Project