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Residential Education is organizing a lecture and book signing with Sherman Alexie. A prolific novelist, poet and screenplay writer and winner of the 2007 National Book Award, Alexie has been hailed as one of the best young writers of his generation. A gifted orator, Alexie won the World Heavyweight Championship Poetry Bout four years in a row, from 1998 to 2001. In his lectures, he tells tales of contemporary American Indian life laced with razor-sharp humor, unsettling candor and biting wit. He reshapes our myths and stereotypes by speaking his mind on a wide range of issues - from race relations, religion and politics to homophobia, war and morality. A Spokane/Coeur d'Alene Indian, Alexie grew up on the Spokane Indian Reservation in Washington. As a college student, he landed in a poetry-writing class and his professor quickly recognized his "intensity of language, passion and energy." Upon the publication of The Business of Fancydancing, his first collection of poetry, The New York Times Book Review described him as "one of the major lyric voices of our time." Since then, Alexie has authored eleven books of poetry, several collections of short stories, two novels and numerous works for magazines. He wrote the screenplay for and produced the feature film Smoke Signals, based on his book, The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven. The film premiered at the 1998 Sundance Film Festival, winning both the Audience Award and Filmmakers Trophy.
His latest book, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian is a coming-of-age, interracial comedy for young adults based on his first year at an all-white high school for which he received the National Book Award. With his humorous, revealing and exuberant works of art, Alexie compels audiences to see the world for all of its pitfalls and possibilities, all of which combine to make him an ideal voice to appeal to students.