Sherman Alexie, The Toughest Indian in the World

Martin Kich (Wright State University)

The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 3.2.6: Indigenous Writing and Culture of North America - United States.
Vol. editors: Emory Elliott (University of California, Riverside), Sarah Henzi (Simon Fraser University), Padraig Kirwan (Goldsmiths College, University of London), Stephen E. Meats (Pittsburg State University)

Dates

First circulation or publication 2000

Places

United States (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Story Collection

Resources

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In his second collection of short stories,

The Toughest Indian in the World

, Alexie presents two more stories about reservation life, “A Good Man” and “Saint Junior”. In six of the other seven stories, Alexie shifts his focus from the reservation to Native Americans living in urban settings. Most of these urban Native Americans are relatively successful and lead materially comfortable lives – especially in comparison to their memories of hardship and impoverishment on the reservation. Taken together, the stories in this collection offer a less polemical but no less meaningful perspective on many of the themes treated in the novel

Reservation Blues

. Moreover, in their structures, these stories are, on the whole, more conventional than those in

The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight

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842 words

Citation: Kich, Martin. "The Toughest Indian in the World". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 08 December 2007 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=7950, accessed 19 April 2024.]

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