first of all congratulations you were
you’ve been recognized as the new face
of fiction I had no idea that there
would be such widespread interest in in
the book honestly you completed this
book after a decade and after living in
several cities what was the research
process like I did research for a couple
of years before I started writing and
the first year of that was actually just
conversations with my grandma when she
told me about her own family story that
she was raised by her grandma and that
grandma had been married at 10 widowed
at 18 with two small children in spite
of all of the restrictions that were put
on bremen widows at the time she her
head was shaved she could only wear
white she really couldn’t leave the
house because she was considered a bad
omen if she was seen on the street she
couldn’t touch even her own kids from
dawn to dusk which she raised her kids
in her own house and then raised her
daughter’s children when the daughter
and her husband proved incapable the
story was so compelling to me but I
didn’t really know much about the
context tonight I just needed a lot more
information and I did a lot of reading
about the socio-political context I
talked to a lot of other relatives I
visited places again you know and saw
them in a new way because they were
peopled by these long dead relatives
that my grandma had you know brought to
life for me the act of imagining myself
into the minds of these people was the
act of creating the novel how did your
family react to your idea for this
project um well into the idea initially
my grandma was very excited my mother
was very worried basically because she
was concerned about how relatives would
take it about the things i might say
there are a lot of subjects that are
sensitive even though it’s fiction
people might have thought that this
character is based on my uncle and you
didn’t represent him and then you know
in a very positive light you’ve
acknowledged that decisions are often
made in the absence of knowledge what
are your impressions about the
significance of knowledge in relation to
decision-making complete knowledge is
impossible and we were always as I have
said groping in the dark I mean even
with the people closest to us for
instance I mean in the particular
instance of my book civic ami my main
character make some decisions on behalf
of her son without knowing
who he’ll really turn out to be and
whether these will be the right
decisions for him and now I as a mother
and making various decisions for my
children I mean some of these are within
my control and some of them aren’t even
you know where we live for instance is
predicated mostly on my husband’s job
and all I can do is hope that I’m
intuiting somehow what will make them
happy thank you very much for your time
you’ve been recognized as the new face
of fiction I had no idea that there
would be such widespread interest in in
the book honestly you completed this
book after a decade and after living in
several cities what was the research
process like I did research for a couple
of years before I started writing and
the first year of that was actually just
conversations with my grandma when she
told me about her own family story that
she was raised by her grandma and that
grandma had been married at 10 widowed
at 18 with two small children in spite
of all of the restrictions that were put
on bremen widows at the time she her
head was shaved she could only wear
white she really couldn’t leave the
house because she was considered a bad
omen if she was seen on the street she
couldn’t touch even her own kids from
dawn to dusk which she raised her kids
in her own house and then raised her
daughter’s children when the daughter
and her husband proved incapable the
story was so compelling to me but I
didn’t really know much about the
context tonight I just needed a lot more
information and I did a lot of reading
about the socio-political context I
talked to a lot of other relatives I
visited places again you know and saw
them in a new way because they were
peopled by these long dead relatives
that my grandma had you know brought to
life for me the act of imagining myself
into the minds of these people was the
act of creating the novel how did your
family react to your idea for this
project um well into the idea initially
my grandma was very excited my mother
was very worried basically because she
was concerned about how relatives would
take it about the things i might say
there are a lot of subjects that are
sensitive even though it’s fiction
people might have thought that this
character is based on my uncle and you
didn’t represent him and then you know
in a very positive light you’ve
acknowledged that decisions are often
made in the absence of knowledge what
are your impressions about the
significance of knowledge in relation to
decision-making complete knowledge is
impossible and we were always as I have
said groping in the dark I mean even
with the people closest to us for
instance I mean in the particular
instance of my book civic ami my main
character make some decisions on behalf
of her son without knowing
who he’ll really turn out to be and
whether these will be the right
decisions for him and now I as a mother
and making various decisions for my
children I mean some of these are within
my control and some of them aren’t even
you know where we live for instance is
predicated mostly on my husband’s job
and all I can do is hope that I’m
intuiting somehow what will make them
happy thank you very much for your time
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