Inside out: Anouk Markovits.(Author Profile)(Interview)

Anouk Markovits never intended to write about the Satmar Hasidic community in which she grew up, but then came 9/11, and Markovits thought, "I've had personal experience with fundamentalist environments." Still, writing about that world didn't come easily. Whether fiction or memoir, most books set in these environments are written by and about those who, like Markovits, have left, and that wasn't the story she wanted to tell. Which raised the question: "Could I possibly write a book about the people who stayed?"

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Markovits's English-language debut, the novel I Am Forbidden (Hogarth Press, May 8), in which the outside world remains always …