Sherman Joseph Alexie Jr. (born October 7, 1966) 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.
1985
His successes in high school won him a scholarship in 1985 to Gonzaga University, a Jesuit university in Spokane.
Originally, Alexie enrolled in the Pre-medical program with hopes of becoming a doctor, but found he was squeamish during dissection in his anatomy classes.
Alexie switched to law, but found that was not suitable, either.
He felt enormous pressure to succeed in college, and consequently, he began drinking heavily to cope with his anxiety.
Unhappy with law, Alexie found comfort in literature classes.
1987
In 1987, he dropped out of Gonzaga and enrolled in Washington State University (WSU), where he took a creative writing course taught by Alex Kuo, a respected poet of Chinese-American background.
Alexie was at a low point in his life, and Kuo served as a mentor to him.
Kuo gave Alexie an anthology entitled Songs of This Earth on Turtle's Back, by Joseph Bruchac.
Alexie said this book changed his life as it taught him "how to connect to non-Native literature in a new way".
He was inspired by reading works of poetry written by Native Americans.
1993
He also wrote The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven (1993), a collection of short stories, which was adapted as the film Smoke Signals (1998), for which he also wrote the screenplay.
1996
His first novel, Reservation Blues, received a 1996 American Book Award.
2007
His best-known book is the semi-autobiographical young adult novel, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian (2007), which won the 2007 U.S. National Book Award for Young People's Literature and the Odyssey Award as best 2008 audiobook for young people (read by Alexie).
2009
His 2009 collection of short stories and poems, War Dances, won the 2010 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction.
Alexie was born at Sacred Heart Hospital in Spokane, Washington.
He is a citizen of the Spokane Tribe of the Spokane Reservation and grew up on the Spokane Indian Reservation.
His father, Sherman Joseph Alexie, was a citizen of the Coeur D'Alene Tribe, and his mother, Lillian Agnes Cox, who was Spokane and also of Colville, Choctaw, and European American ancestry.
One of his paternal great-grandfathers was of Russian descent.
Alexie was born with hydrocephalus, a condition that occurs when there is an abnormally large amount of cerebral fluid in the brain's ventricular system.
He had to have brain surgery when he was six months old, and was at high risk of death or mental disabilities if he survived.
Alexie's surgery was successful; he did not experience mental damage but
had other side effects.
His parents were alcoholics, though his mother achieved sobriety.
His father often left the house on drinking binges for days at a time.
To support her six children, Alexie's mother, Lillian, sewed quilts, worked as a clerk at the Wellpinit Trading Post, and had some other jobs.
Alexie has described his life at the reservation school as challenging, as he was constantly teased by other kids and endured abuse he described as "torture" from white nuns who taught there.
They called him "The Globe" because his head was larger than usual, due to his hydrocephalus as an infant.
Until the age of seven, Alexie had seizures and bedwetting; he had to take strong drugs to control them.
Because of his health problems, he was excluded from many of the activities that are rites of passage for young Indian males.
Alexie excelled academically, reading everything available, including auto repair manuals.
In order to better his education, Alexie decided to leave the reservation and attend high school in Reardan, Washington., 22 miles from the reservation, and where Alexie was the only Native American student.
He excelled at his studies and became a star player on the basketball team, the Reardan High School Indians.
He was elected class president and was a member of the debate team.
2018
On February 28, 2018, Alexie published a statement regarding accusations of sexual harassment against him by several women, including author Litsa Dremousis, with whom he alleged having a consensual affair in the past and who claimed numerous women had spoken to her about Alexie's behavior.
Alexie admitted he had "harmed" other people besides Dremousis.
Dremousis's response initially appeared on her Facebook page and was subsequently reprinted in The Stranger on March 1, 2018.
The allegations against Alexie were detailed in an NPR story five days later.
