Rumpus Mini w/ Lorraine Adams

I’m over at The Rumpus today in a “mini” conversation with Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author, Lorraine Adams. You can read the full text – it is short, by definition – here. Even more brief excerpt below:

Adams: No one ever asked me this. But you’ve hit on why I don’t write short stories. I think in novel length.

Freeman: Ha! Knowing what you do about your subjects – Algeria’s internal politics, the lives of Arab Muslims without papers in the US, the politics directed at Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan, American military intelligence, “black ops,” and, of course, news coverage of all those things – do you ever feel “done” when you finish? Or is there always more of a conversation you wish to have?

Adams: I’ve been obsessed with these issues for ten years now as a novelist and critic. My next novel is set in present day Lahore Pakistan. It’s about a wedding. Yet it’s a wedding in the middle of danger. So I think the conversation about political violence and the American understanding or misunderstanding of the rest of the world’s conflicts is my subject.

I’ve blogged about Lorraine’s work before while talking about media and truth. If you have money to spend on one book right now, buy Harbor (Knopf, 2004), because I know that as soon as you finish it you will want to read everything else she has ever written. Including her blog. And her essays, like ‘Terror Fiction,’ in The New Republic.