10 Questions for Louise Erdrich

Half-Chippewa novelist Louise Erdrich on her crime thriller, Geronimo's name and the good ideas of Richard Nixon

Paul Emmel

Half-Chippewa novelist Louise Erdrich

Were you surprised that your book The Round House won the National Book Award?
I was completely shocked. I didn't know how it would feel to win. I've been nominated twice before. My editor and I have a routine when we don't win. We look at each other and say, "We was robbed," and we smile at everybody else. So when my book was called out, I sort of lost consciousness. I can't remember what happened to me afterward.

How much of the novel is rooted in the reality of what happens on the reservation?
Crimes of sexual violence...

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