Interview: Sherman Alexie
Since his market breakthrough collection of short stories, The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven, came out in 1993, Sherman Alexie has been giving talks as well as writing fiction, poetry, and screenplays. His newest novel is Flight, with his first young adult novel, the semi-autobiographical The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, expected out in September.
Q. What are the new books about?
A. Flight is a time travel war novel. An orphan Indian kid on the verge of committing a terrible act of violence gets tossed through time. He ends up in Little Big Horn, Sand Creek, then also jumps into the body of a flight instructor for a suicide bomber. In The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, an Indian kid leaves the reservation school for the white school on the border. He’s the only Indian except for the mascot.
Q. What is Native American literature to you?
A. By and large, native American literature is literary. It’s almost strictly created by Native American professors. In terms of people who have major publishers and major careers, it must be approaching 100%. In the native world, we’re poor. College is our savior. So I think what else can a poor bookish minority do? What other job can they have where they’re going to be celebrated and esteemed? I hadn’t even thought about it in those terms before. It is the one place where we are wanted in a major way. They recruit brown-skinned professors.
Q. Why has writing been so welcoming?
A. In the art world there are judgments in the power structure. The reason brown writers have risen in the last 20 to 30 years [is] we’ve bypassed that. We’ve created our own power structures and have our own critics now. We appeal directly to readers. The whole white critical world – the Harold Blooms and Helen Vendlers – the people who used to be taste makers are now marginalized. It’s things like Pages that have marginalized them. Bloom or Bender would argue heavily against Pages – and they’d lose. [Note: this interview was originally supposed to run in the March/April issue of Pages, which has since been shut down by publisher AMS because of the company's bankruptcy problems.]
Q. What are the challenges facing Native American writing?
A. If you look at Native literature 30 years ago at the writers with big careers, probably the same 15 writers are big now. The last big splash from a native writer was in 1995 – Susan Power in The Grass Dancer. One of the reasons why there hasn’t been another writer [breaking out] in all these years is because from what I’ve seen in my travels, in Native literature we all tell the same damned story. There is a repetition of theme. It’s not bad at all, but I don’t think it inspires younger native writers as much as more diversity of theme would.
Q. What needs to change?
A. I love Native American literature where it is, but we desperately need new blood. Out of assimilation is going to come that new kind of writing from natives that didn’t grow up feeling separate, people who don’t automatically believe that their native identity limits them that will go in a new direction. I’m hard wired to be pissed; I’m hard wired to be separate, and I’ll be very interested to see a Native writer without that hard wiring.
Q. And how do you want your writing to change?
A. I’m thinking of the Native American as witness to the rest of the world. I want to write about the rest of the world through my eyes and my fictional character’s eyes. How does this native character look at white folks? How does this native character look at black folks? How does this native character look at artichokes. I want a change of address card for myself.
Q. What are the new books about?
A. Flight is a time travel war novel. An orphan Indian kid on the verge of committing a terrible act of violence gets tossed through time. He ends up in Little Big Horn, Sand Creek, then also jumps into the body of a flight instructor for a suicide bomber. In The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, an Indian kid leaves the reservation school for the white school on the border. He’s the only Indian except for the mascot.
Q. What is Native American literature to you?
A. By and large, native American literature is literary. It’s almost strictly created by Native American professors. In terms of people who have major publishers and major careers, it must be approaching 100%. In the native world, we’re poor. College is our savior. So I think what else can a poor bookish minority do? What other job can they have where they’re going to be celebrated and esteemed? I hadn’t even thought about it in those terms before. It is the one place where we are wanted in a major way. They recruit brown-skinned professors.
Q. Why has writing been so welcoming?
A. In the art world there are judgments in the power structure. The reason brown writers have risen in the last 20 to 30 years [is] we’ve bypassed that. We’ve created our own power structures and have our own critics now. We appeal directly to readers. The whole white critical world – the Harold Blooms and Helen Vendlers – the people who used to be taste makers are now marginalized. It’s things like Pages that have marginalized them. Bloom or Bender would argue heavily against Pages – and they’d lose. [Note: this interview was originally supposed to run in the March/April issue of Pages, which has since been shut down by publisher AMS because of the company's bankruptcy problems.]
Q. What are the challenges facing Native American writing?
A. If you look at Native literature 30 years ago at the writers with big careers, probably the same 15 writers are big now. The last big splash from a native writer was in 1995 – Susan Power in The Grass Dancer. One of the reasons why there hasn’t been another writer [breaking out] in all these years is because from what I’ve seen in my travels, in Native literature we all tell the same damned story. There is a repetition of theme. It’s not bad at all, but I don’t think it inspires younger native writers as much as more diversity of theme would.
Q. What needs to change?
A. I love Native American literature where it is, but we desperately need new blood. Out of assimilation is going to come that new kind of writing from natives that didn’t grow up feeling separate, people who don’t automatically believe that their native identity limits them that will go in a new direction. I’m hard wired to be pissed; I’m hard wired to be separate, and I’ll be very interested to see a Native writer without that hard wiring.
Q. And how do you want your writing to change?
A. I’m thinking of the Native American as witness to the rest of the world. I want to write about the rest of the world through my eyes and my fictional character’s eyes. How does this native character look at white folks? How does this native character look at black folks? How does this native character look at artichokes. I want a change of address card for myself.
posted by Erik Sherman @ 7:59 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home