Sherman Alexie, whose novel The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian was banned in some school districts, is no stranger to controversy.
He’s recently come out with a new collection of stories and poetry called War Dances. In this latest Mother Jones interview, he talks about the weight of being American’s most famous Native American Indian author: “I’m going to get grief from certain people about not having likable characters,” he says. “As an Indian writer I’m supposed to be showing us in our best light.”
In the interview he also responds to his having called the Amazon Kindle elitist: “If I had been talking about drowning polar bears, people would have been weeping with me. But nobody recognizes that a bookstore or library can also be a drowning polar bear. And right now in this country, magazines, newspapers, and bookstores are drowning polar bears. And if people can’t see that or don’t want to talk about it, I don’t understand them at all.”
You can read the title story of his new collection here.
