2016-12-01
51 分钟David Means reads and discusses “The Toughest Indian in the World,” by Sherman Alexie.
This is the New Yorker fiction podcast from the New Yorker magazine.
I'm Deborah Treisman, fiction editor at the New Yorker.
Each month we invite a writer to choose a story from the magazine's archives to read and discuss.
This month we're going to hear the toughest indian in the world by Sherman Alexei, which was published in the New Yorker in June of 1999.
We all know that nostalgia is dangerous, but I remember those days with a clear conscience.
We live in different days now, and there aren't as many indian hitchhikers as there used to be.
The story was chosen by David Means, who's published four story collections.
His first novel, Histopia, was published earlier this year.
Hi, David.
Hey, Debra.
So last time you were on the podcast, you read a story by Raymond Carver.
What made you pick Sherman Alexei this time?
I'm not sure.
I think it was.
I felt for some reason, I suddenly felt that Sherman Alexei was being neglected a little bit.
I think he's a writer who goes way beyond the category of a native american writer and is simply just a great storyteller and story writer.
And I felt this story had some complexity that lent itself to discussion, I think at some level.
Did you read it when it first came out?
I think I read it in book form years ago, and occasionally I've brought it in front of my class to teach.
So I've looked at it over the years again and again.