Sherman Joseph Alexie Jr. (born October 7, 1966) is a Spokane novelist, short story writer, poet, screenwriter, and filmmaker. His writings draw on his experiences as an Indigenous American with ancestry from several tribes. He grew up on the Spokane Indian Reservation and now lives in Seattle, Washington.

His best-known book is the semi-autobiographical young adult novel, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian (2007), which won the 2007 U.S. National Book Award for Young People's Literature and the Odyssey Award as best 2008 audiobook for young people (read by Alexie).

He also wrote The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven (1993), a collection of short stories, which was adapted as the film Smoke Signals (1998), for which he also wrote the screenplay. His first novel, Reservation Blues, received a 1996 American Book Award. His 2009 collection of short stories and poems, War Dances, won the 2010 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction.

Alexie was born at Sacred Heart Hospital in Spokane, Washington. He is a citizen of the Spokane Tribe of the Spokane Reservation and grew up on the Spokane Indian Reservation. His father, Sherman Joseph Alexie, was a citizen of the Coeur D'Alene Tribe, and his mother, Lillian Agnes Cox, was of Spokane, Colville, Choctaw, and European American ancestry. One of his paternal great-grandfathers was of Russian descent.

Alexie was born with hydrocephalus, a condition that occurs when there is an abnormally large amount of cerebral fluid in the brain's ventricular system. He had to have brain surgery when he was six months old, and was at high risk of death or mental disabilities if he survived. Alexie's surgery was successful; he did not experience mental damage but had other side effects.

His parents were alcoholics, though his mother achieved sobriety. His father often left the house on drinking binges for days at a time. To support her six children, Alexie's mother, Lillian, sewed quilts, served as a clerk at the Wellpinit Trading Post, and worked other jobs as well.

Alexie has described his life at the reservation school as challenging, as he was constantly teased by other kids and endured abuse he described as "torture" from white nuns who taught there. They called him "The Globe" because his head was larger than usual, due to his hydrocephalus as an infant. Until the age of seven, Alexie had seizures and bedwetting; he had to take strong drugs to control them. Because of his health problems, he was excluded from many of the activities that are rites of passage for young Indian males. Alexie excelled academically, reading everything available, including auto repair manuals.

In order to better his education, Alexie decided to leave the reservation and attend high school, where he was the only Native American student, 22 miles from the reservation in Reardan, Washington. He excelled at his studies and became a star player on the basketball team, the Reardan High School Indians. He was elected class president and was a member of the debate team.