October 5, 2009

Native writer Sherman Alexie enjoys being an offensive threat

Sherman Alexie sits in a coffee shop on Westlake Avenue, talking about his recent appearance at a national booksellers convention. Alexie stirred up some controversy when he called the Kindle an "elitist" wireless reading device, but right now he's telling a story about being on a panel with James Patterson and Lisa Scottoline, fiction writers who are more popular than he is and don't go looking for trouble, like he does.

Alexie couldn't get Patterson and Scottoline to understand the difference between what they write and what he writes. They study the book-buying market and try to appeal to the broadest possible audience. Alexie doesn't operate that way.

"If you're not offending a pretty high percentage of people who read your books, you're not doing it well enough," Alexie says. "(Patterson and Scottoline) don't want to displease anybody, and I'd just feel terrible if I didn't displease somebody. At my public performances, if somebody doesn't walk out at some point I feel like I haven't done my job."

Then Alexie tips his head back and laughs. It's his signature move, as easy to spot and hard to defend as a crossover dribble on the basketball court near his office.

The 42-year-old Alexie loves basketball -- he can't seem to go more than a few minutes without making some reference to it or using it as a metaphor -- but he loves to laugh even more. He's a serious man, committed to his art and his life with an intensity that would come off as maniacal if it weren't for the humor lurking at the edge of every pronouncement. He's not afraid to say anything, not afraid to write about anything and not afraid to joke about anything. After he stopped laughing, Alexie went quiet and waited for the next question:

Parents seek to ban award-winning book from school

http://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/entertainment/books/blog/2009/06/parents_seek_to_ban_awardwinni.html

via Read Street:

The English Department at Antioch High School, in the Chicago suburbs, assigned [The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, by Sherman Alexie] for the incoming freshman class to read over the summer. The book, which follows the misadventures of a 14-year-old American Indian boy attending an all-white high school, won the National Book Award for Young People’s Literature, and was recognized by both the Los Angeles Times and the New York Times in the children’s book category.

The book is described as having vulgar language and describing sexual situations, and these parents want it pulled, even though there is a second option for the assignment, Down River, if parents don’t approve of Alexie’s work.

I thought one school official, John Whitehurst, described the parents’ charge of the school condoning such language and behavior most succinctly:

“That is like saying that because Romeo and Juliet committed teen suicide, we condone teen suicide,” Whitehurst said. “Kids know the difference. Like it or not, that is the way 14-year-old boys talk to each other.”

April 28, 2009

When the Rain Sings is a book of poems written by young Native people from several tribal nations: Ojibwe, Lakota, Omaha, Navajo, Cochiti/Kiowa, O’odham, Yaqui, Hopi, and Ute. When the Rain Sings was first published in 1999. The story behind the book is included in this new edition, which is dedicated to Lee Francis, the founding director of Wordcraft Circle. Through the committed work of Lee Francis and others, we’ve got more Native writers than ever before.

via (American Indians in Childrens Literature)

March 12, 2009

Native American Writer Details Personal Struggle

http://cornellsun.com/section/news/content/2009/03/09/native-american-writer-...

By Byungkwan Park

“Just so you know, I got here because of rage,” said Sherman Alexie, an award-winning Native American writer and occasional comedian, in a half-serious, half-facetious manner at the Statler Auditorium in his Friday evening lecture, “The Partially True Story of the True Diary of a Part-Time Indian.”

Alexie’s first young adult novel, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian won the 2007 National Book Award in Young People’s Literature. The lecture, which was based on this novel, presented an overview of the author’s childhood and development as a writer.

Alexie frequently elicited laughter from the nearly 600-person audience as he often joked about the many tragedies of his younger years.

As a six-month-old baby, Alexie needed brain surgery due to an abnormal accumulation of water in his brain, a condition called hydrocephalus. Although he survived the surgery, he suffered seizure throughout his childhood. The sickness, however, was only one part of Alexie’s rough childhood.

“I was sick, very sick, and very poor on top of that … Even your food was constantly reminding you of how poor you were,” Alexie said.

Alexie grew up eating food provided by the government with his family on the Spokane Indian Reservation in Wellpinit, Washington. Partly as a result of the reservation’s impoverishment, Alexie developed a rather bitter outlook on life as an adolescent.

According to Alexie, he was dehumanized constantly as a poor, disabled Native American.

“I personally hate any philosophy that dehumanizes human beings,” Alexie said.

“You don’t live like that and not collect pounds and pounds of rage,” he added.

Alexie pointed to the audience to address and belittle existing Native American stereotypes.

“You thought you were the ones colonized,” Alexie said sarcastically. “I wish we were the people that you think we are, and I wish you were the people in the Declaration of Independence.”