Made possible by the Drue Heinz Trust

National Book Award-winning author Sherman Alexie celebrates the 10th anniversary of The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian and the publication of his searing, deeply moving family memoir You Don’t Have to Say You Love Me.

In his Absolutely True Diary, Sherman Alexie tells the story of Junior, a budding cartoonist growing up on the Spokane Indian Reservation. Determined to take his future into his own hands, Junior leaves his troubled school on the rez to attend an all-white farm town high school where the only other Indian is the school mascot. Heartbreaking, funny, and beautifully written, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, is based on the author’s own experiences.

Alexie wrote You Don’t Have to Say You Love Me in response to his mother’s death at the age of 78. The stunning memoir features 78 poems, 78 essays and intimate family photographs that portray raw, angry, funny, profane, tender memories of a childhood few can imagine—growing up dirt-poor on an Indian reservation, one of four children raised by alcoholic parents. Throughout, his mother emerges as a beautiful, mercurial, abusive, intelligent, complex woman. A powerful account of a complicated relationship, an unflinching and unforgettable remembrance.

A National Book Award-winning author, poet, and filmmaker, Sherman has been named one of Granta’s Best Young American Novelists and has been lauded by The Boston Globe as “an important voice in American literature.” He is one of the most well-known and beloved literary writers of his generation, with works such as The Long Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven and Reservoir Blues and has received numerous awards and citations, including the PEN/Malamud Award for Fiction and the Lila Wallace-Reader’s Digest Award.