ネイティブ・アメリカン，いわゆるインディアンについて知っていることは，と尋ねられたとして，自分が答えられることは限られています。アジア系の顔立ちと肌の色をもっていること，酋長と呼ばれるリーダーがいること，ぐらいでしょうか。正直，ピーターパンに登場するネバーランドのインディアンたちの姿を思い浮かべるのがせいぜいといったところです。自分にとって，そんな遠い存在でしかなかった現在のネイティブ・アメリカンについて，一気に関心を高めてくれる本に出会いました。シャーマン・アレクシー著，「はみだしインディアンのホントにホントの物語」という本です。
If someone asks me like “What do you know about the Native Americans, in other words, Indians?”, actually, I only have a few things to answer to it like they have facial features and skin-colors similar to Asians, they have leaders called chiefs, and so on. To be honest, I can only come up with those Indians who live in the Neverland in Peter Pan movie at the most. I met a book that definitely made me interested in the present state of Native Americans who had been a kind of people I had very little to do with. It is a book named “The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian” written by Sherman Alexie.
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「生まれたときに脳に水がたまっていた」という衝撃的な出だしで始まるこの本は，著者シャーマン・アレクシーの自伝です。脳脊髄液が脳にたまった状態で生まれたというこの著者は，通常３２本であるはずの歯が４２本生えたり，片目が近視でもう一方が遠視だったり，週に２度は癲癇の発作が出たり，といった散々な幼少期を過ごし,さらには壮絶ないじめにもあっていたとのことです。このように書くと，ただただ悲惨なお話のように聞こえますが，著者の語り口には不思議な勢いとユーモアがあり，どんなにひどいエピソードでも読者を笑顔にし，痛快な気持ちにさえしてくれます。
“I was born with water on the brain.”, this shocking sentence is the first one of the book which is an autobiography of the author Sherman Alexie. He was born with too much cerebral spinal fluid inside his skull, and this fact caused him many kind of physical problems, for example, he had 42 teeth whereas ordinary people had 32, his one eye was nearsighted and the other was farsighted, and he had seizures at least two times a week, so he spent his childhood with those troubles, plus he was bullied terribly. Written that way, the plot sounds just miserable, but actually, I somehow feel a momentum and humor about the author’s narrative way so no matter how an episode is terrible, I believe, it makes you smile and thrilled.
この本で初めて知ったことがたくさんありました。ネイティブ・アメリカンの多くがレザベーションと呼ばれる居住区に住んでいること。そこでは多くの人がアルコール依存症であり，死亡率が非常に高いことなどです。
冒険心に富んだ著者は，高校生になるにあたってレザベーションを飛び出し，白人の学校に通い始めます。そこで経験する差別，恋，友情のエピソードを通じて，人種を超えた人間の普遍性について，著者は読者に考えさせてくれます。よい本に出会えてうれしいです。
There were many things I knew for the first time by reading this book as follows, most native Americans live in some quarters called reservations where you can see so many alcoholics and the death rate is extremely high.
The author who was full of adventurous spirit left his reservation when he was about to become a high school student ending up going to a white people high school. Through things he experienced there such as discriminations, loves, and friendships, he makes you think of universality of human beyond the difference between races. I was really happy encountering a good book.
