Letter to Time Magazine

To the Editor,

Sherman Alexie's essay "When the Story Stolen Is Your Own" (Time, February 6, 2006) eloquently examines important questions of truth, identity, and heritage; however, it does contain an important factual error.

While Forrest Carter's The Education of Little Tree did win the American Booksellers Association's award for book of the year in 1991, at that time neither the independent booksellers who selected the winning title nor ABA were aware of any "documented fact" that Carter was actually Asa Earl Carter, a white supremacist and a former speech writer for Alabama Governor George Wallace.

The award was presented in April 1991, and it was only in October of that year that Emory University history professor Dan T. Carter first published an op-ed piece documenting Asa Carter's hoax.

Sincerely,

Mitchell Kaplan
ABA President

Books & Books
Coral Gables, Florida