Sherman Alexie a Book Award finalist

Spokane-area native Sherman Alexie is a finalist for this year’s National Book Award in the young people’s literature category for his novel “The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian.”

Alexie, who has written short stories, poetry, novels and screenplays, said the book has drawn the biggest response of any in his career. It’s on the New York Times bestseller list, it got critical raves across the board, and audiences have had a visceral reaction to it, he said.

“It’s incredible,” he said Wednesday by phone from the airport in Miami. “I’ve had a long and wonderful career, but this is huge.”

It was the third National Book Award nomination for a Spokane-connected author in two years – following last year’s nod for Jess Walter’s novel, “The Zero,” and nonfiction win for Spokane native Tim Egan’s “The Worst Hard Time.”

Alexie said Walter was one of the first people he spoke to after learning of his nomination.

“Three Spokane guys in two years,” said Alexie. “For Jess and I, it’s a kid from Springdale and a kid from Wellpinit (respectively). I certainly hope the small-town kids in Eastern Washington see this and understand how huge this is. We are them.”

Alexie, who grew up on the Spokane Indian Reservation, first made a big splash on the literary scene with a collection of short stories titled, “The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven.” He wrote and co-produced the film, “Smoke Signals,” among the first movies to tell a story set on a reservation.

“True Diary” is about Junior, a young man growing up on the Spokane Indian Reservation who draws cartoons. He leaves the reservation to attend an all-white school in a farm town.

Alexie will read from the book in an appearance Tuesday at 7:30 p.m. at Auntie’s Bookstore, 402 W. Main Ave.

He said he’s now working on another youth novel, a collection of poetry, a memoir and a mystery.

Among the other finalists are “God is Not Great” author Christopher Hitchens, “Tree of Smoke” novelist Denis Johnson and former U.S. poet laureate Robert Hass.

The results will be announced at a Nov. 14 ceremony in Manhattan.

The awards, founded in 1950, are sponsored by the National Book Foundation, a nonprofit organization.

Winners in each category receive $10,000. Other finalists get $1,000.

The full list of this year’s nominees:

“Fiction: Mischa Berlinski, “Fieldwork”; Lydia Davis, “Varieties of Disturbance”; Joshua Ferris, “Then We Came to the End”; Denis Johnson, “Tree of Smoke”; Jim Shepard, “Like You’d Understand, Anyway.”

“Nonfiction: Edwidge Danticat, “Brother, I’m Dying”; Christopher Hitchens, “God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything”; Woody Holton, “Unruly Americans and the Origins of the Constitution”; Arnold Rampersad, “Ralph Ellison: A Biography”; Tim Weiner, “Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA.”

“Poetry: Linda Gregerson, “Magnetic North”; Robert Hass, “Time and Materials”; David Kirby, “The House on Boulevard St.”; Stanley Plumly, “Old Heart”; Ellen Bryant Voigt, “Messenger: New and Selected Poems 1976-2006.”

“Young people’s literature: Sherman Alexie, “The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian”; Kathleen Duey, “Skin Hunger: A Resurrection of Magic, Book One”; M. Sindy Felin, “Touching Snow”; Brian Selznick, “The Invention of Hugo Cabret”; Sara Zarr, “Story of a Girl.”