Sherman Alexie
Sherman Alexie
Sherman Joseph Alexie, Jr., born October 7, 1966) is an American poet, writer, and filmmaker. Much of his writing draws on his experiences as a Native American with ancestry from several tribes. He grew up on the Spokane Indian Reservation and now lives in Seattle, Washington...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth7 October 1966
CityWelpinet, WA
CountryUnited States of America
grew indians native pop
You'd never know it from reading the rest of the Native writers, but Indians actually grew up with American pop culture.
native-american writing ironic
Sixty percent of all Indians live in urban areas, but nobody's writing about them. They're really an underrepresented population, and the ironic thing is very, very few of those we call Native American writers actually grew up on reservations, and yet most of their work is about reservations.
selfish native-american needs
I've come to the point in my life where I encourage young Native Americans to become much more selfish about their personal needs and wants.
country native-american mean
I am extremely conscious of my tribalism. And when you talk about tribalism, you talk about living in a black and white world. I mean, Native American tribalism sovereignty, even the political fight for sovereignty and cultural sovereignty is a very us versus them. And I think a lot of people in this country, especially European Americans and those descended from Europeans don't see themselves as tribal.
war native-american ideas
There's this whole notion of being an Indian - the idea that "warrior" is a positive description of us [Indians as native Americans]. When an Indian guy does well, he's a warrior, even now. He could be a computer salesman, but if he does well, he's a warrior. I'm not a pacifist by any measure, but I'm also fully aware that the reasons I might go to war could be very dubious.
book native-american thinking
I think most Native American literature is unreadable by the vast majority of Native Americans. Generally speaking Indians don't read books. It's not a book culture. That's why I'm trying to make movies. Indians go to movies; Indians own video recorders.
basketball native-american player
There have been players with Indian heritage, but there hasn't been a Native-American professional basketball player who became a regular for all sorts of social and political reasons.
spiritual native-american thinking
All I try to do is portray Indians as we are, in creative ways. With imagination and poetry. I think a lot of Native American literature is stuck in one idea: sort of spiritual, environmentalist Indians. And I want to portray everyday lives. I think by doing that, by portraying the ordinary lives of Indians, perhaps people learn something new.
details known prose vivid writer
Ann Beattie is a writer for and of her time. Her prose has become known for its vivid particularity, the details of the way we live.
almost famous parody takes white
When I first read his work, I almost thought it was some kind of parody by a famous white writer, because he takes so many things from me and other writers.
But the real interesting stuff is in the cellar and the attic.
eden garden people
A lot of people have no idea that right now Y.A. (young adult). is the Garden of Eden of literature.
people
I don't think there's a whole lot of class literature at all. I think most of that has become racially based, and people don't think of it as being class literature.
father home sober-up
My father was always depressed. When he was home and sober, he was mostly in his room.