https://lithub.com/tea-obreht-on-writing-a-layered-intertextual-tale-of-the-american-west/
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“The opening lines to Sunrise are gripping: Now you see her.”
“How complicated was it to begin a novel with a woman falling out of a plane into a lake?”
“TO: I have to admit that it was the most fun I’ve ever had writing a book.”
“And at the moment they all lit up in my mind in the same shade of purple, the in-flight tracker hit me with trivia for an eastern Wyoming point of interest, a ghost town called “Sunrise.” So, yes—there is a real Sunrise in Wyoming, and it is a real ghost town, but the town in this book is named “Sunrise” in honor of that moment of revelation more than anything else.”
“I thought of Vargas.”
“Is this because she’s a city girl, raised in Queens, juggling graduate school and working as a nanny on the Upper West Side, with no knowledge of life in the mountains and woods?”
“It’s been my privilege to learn, from scholars and thinkers and writers far more deeply rooted than myself in the American west, about its realities and relentless contradictions.”
“Vargas’s story had to exist as an actual book within the novel, with the possibility of impacting other characters in multiple ways.”
“JC: What are you working on now/next?”
“I bought some magazines, got on the next flight, tried to calm myself down.”
“Literary Hub » Téa Obreht on Writing a Layered, Intertextual Tale of the American West Literary Hub Craft and Criticism Literary Criticism Craft and Advice In Conversation On Translation Fiction and Poetry Short Story From the Novel Poem News and Culture History Science Politics Biography Memoir Food Technology Bookstores and Libraries Film and TV Travel Music Art and Photography The Hub Style Design Sports Become A Member Lit Hub Radio The Lit Hub Podcast Awakeners Fiction/Non/Fiction The Critic and Her Publics Windham-Campbell Prizes Podcast Memoir Nation Beyond the Page First Draft: A Dialogue on Writing Thresholds The Cosmic Library Culture Schlock Reading Lists Reading Challenge Book Marks Best Reviewed Books CrimeReads True Crime The Daily Thrill Log In Craft and Criticism Fiction and Poetry News and Culture Lit Hub Radio Reading Lists Reading Challenge Book Marks CrimeReads Log In Téa Obreht on Writing a Layered, Intertextual Tale of the American West Jane Ciabattari Talks to the Author of Sunrise Jane Ciabattari August 11, 2026 Belgrade-born Téa Obreht’s first novel, The Tiger’s Wife (2011), set against the landscape of the former Yugoslavia, blended myth, village life, wartime strife and deep grandfather-granddaughter love into a marvel that won her the Orange Prize for Fiction at the age of twenty-five.”
“There’s the story of a “noble gunslinger” named Anton Vargas, told in two installments—a “heroic” 1882 classic Western version and a 1902 more nuanced, less “heroic” draft by a 2003 author.”
“In a minute or two she’ll realize the broad strokes of all this and slow her thrashing.”
“TO: A lot of what happens to Nina in those first few days after the plane crash is a projection of my terrors regarding my own ignorance and overdependence on technology.”
“I started what I thought was a short story about a young historical reenactor who gets embroiled in a terrible incident in a Wyoming bar.”
“And, of course, the power is going to go soon.”