Sherman J. Alexie, Jr. is of Spokane Indian ancestry on his mother’s side and Coeur d’Alene Indian descent on his father’s. A novelist, short-story writer, poet, filmmaker, and stand-up comedian, Alexie was born one of six siblings on October 7, 1966, and grew up in Wellpinit, Washington, located on the Spokane Indian Reservation approximately 50 miles northwest of Spokane. The author was born hydrocephalic—with water on the brain— and underwent major brain surgery when he was six months old. He was not expected to survive and suffered seizures through childhood. After receiving the same textbook his mother used when she attended the reservation’s school, a sign of the decrepit state of reservation education, Alexie transferred to a school off the reservation to complete his high-school years. Alexie attended Gonzaga University in Spokane on a scholarship in 1985, spending two years there before transferring to Washington State University in Pullman. Soon after graduating with a degree in American Studies, Alexie received a Washington State Arts Commission Poetry Fellowship (1991) and a National Endowment for the Arts Poetry Fellowship (1992). In the past decade, he has composed three novels, nine books of poetry, two collections of short stories, and two screenplays.
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