Sherman Alexie

by Berglund, Jeff

• ISBN13: 9781607810087
• ISBN10: 1607810085
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2010-12-31
• Publisher: Univ of Utah Pr

Summary

Sherman Alexie is, by many accounts, the most widely read American Indian writer in the United States and likely in the world. A literary polymath, Alexie's nineteen published books span a variety of genres and include his most recent National Book Award-winningThe Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian.Now, for the first time, a volume of critical essays is devoted to Alexie's work both in print and on the big screen. Editors Jeff Berglund and Jan Roush have assembled twelve leading scholars of American Indian literature to provide new perspectives on a writer with his finger on the pulse of America.Interdisciplinary in their approach to Alexie's work, these essays cover the writer's entire career, and are insightful and accessible to scholars and lay readers alike. This volume is a worthy companion to the work of one of our nations's most recognized contemporary voices."The bar is raised. I believe this work will be seen as a role model for literary criticism of Native American fiction, poetry, and film."--Simon Ortiz, poet and professor of English at Arizona State University

Author Biography

Jeff Berglund is an associate professor of English at Northern Arizona University. He is the author of Cannibal Fictions: American Explorations of Colonialism, Race, Gender, and Sexuality. Jan Roush is an associate professor of English at Utah State University.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	p. viii
Introduction: "Imagination Turns Every Word into a Bottle Rocket" An Introduction to Sherman Alexie	p. xi
Dancing that Way, Things Began to Change: The Ghost Dance as Pantribal Metaphor in Sherman Alexie's Writing	p. 1
"Survival = Anger x Imagination": Sherman Alexie's Dark Humor	p. 25
"An Extreme Need to Tell the Truth": Silence and Language in Sherman Alexie's "The Trial of Thomas Builds-the-Fire"	p. 44
Rock and Roll, Redskins, and Blues in Sherman Alexie's Work	p. 62
This Is What It Means to Say Reservation Cinema: Making Cinematic Indians in Smoke Signals	p. 74
Native Sensibility and the Significance of Women in Smoke Signals	p. 95
The Distinctive Sonority of Sherman Alexie's Indigenous Poetics	p. 107
The Poetics of Tribalism in Sherman Alexie's The Summer of Black Widows	p. 134
Sherman Alexie's Challenge to the Academy's Teaching of Native American Literature, Non-Native Writers, and Critics	p. 159
"Indians Do Not Live in Cities, They Only Reside There": Captivity and the Urban Wilderness in Indian Killer	p. 171
Indigenous Liaisons: Sex/Gender Variability, Indianness, and Intimacy in Sherman Alexie's The Toughest Indian in the World	p. 186
Sherman Alexie's Transformation of "Ten Little Indians"	p. 212
Healing the Soul Wound in Flight and The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian	p. 224
The Business of Writing: Sherman Alexie's Meditations of Authorship	p. 241
Contributors	p. 265
Bibliography	p. 269
Index	p. 293
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