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 are absolutely...