SOURCE: Alexie, Sherman, and Doug Marx. “Sherman Alexie: A Reservation of the Mind.”Publishers Weekly (16 September 1996): 39–40.

In the following interview, Alexie discusses his initiation into literature and his adherence to realism in writing about the American-Indian experience.

Six years ago, as a 24-year-old student at Washington State University, Sherman Alexie, a Spokane/Coeur d'Alene Indian, set down his career goals at the insistence of a friend: 1) to publish ten books by age 30; 2) to see a book on the silver screen by 35; and 3) to receive a major literary prize by 40.

With Indian Killer his third prose work, a tragic thriller about the ravages of cultural dilution and dissolution, out this month from Grove/Atlantic, and The Summer of Black Widows, his seventh collection of poetry, out in October from Hanging Loose Press, the first goal will be achieved. Three of Alexie's books—his first short-story collection, The Lone Ranger...