Elizabeth Strout interview

I researched Somalia and the Somali community population in this country and even the camps. The research I did was just enormous. I would say there were four or five years where I just had books piled up. I got very interested in it. But even as I was doing it, I thought, "I don't think I can take on a point of view," but wanted to. There was so much I absorbed—all these Somali proverbs. I realized in the final version that there is not one Somali proverb, and I learned 300. 

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Elizabeth Strout wins 2009 Pulitzer Prize in Fiction