Alexie sherman biography

Sherman J. Alexie, Jr. Approximately 1, Spokane Tribal members live there. Born hydrocephalic, with water on the brain, Alexie underwent a brain operation at the age of 6 months and was not expected to survive. When he did beat the odds, doctors predicted he would live with severe mental retardation.

Sherman alexie nationality

Though he showed no signs of this, he suffered severe side effects, such as seizures and uncontrollable bed-wetting, throughout his childhood. In spite of all this, Alexie learned to read by age three, and devoured novels, such as John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath , by age five. All these things ostracized him from his peers and he was often the brunt of other kids' jokes on the reservation.

As a teenager, after finding his mother's name written in a textbook he was assigned at the Wellpinit school, Alexie made a conscious decision to attend high school off the reservation in Reardan, WA, where he knew he would get a better education. At Reardan High he was "the only Indian He graduated from Reardan High and went on to attend Gonzaga University in Spokane on scholarship in Alexie planned to be a doctor until he "fainted three times in human anatomy class and needed a career change.