Trauma Quotes - page 5
As writers, of course we're interested in human beings, human stories, human trauma, and all that is very compelling for readers. But when we write these powerful stories about individual people, we have the illusion that we've made a difference. And of course we have-people read the books, they're touched emotionally by these kinds of stories, and that's great. But to the extent that the stories that we're telling are about people who are weaker, in some way-they come from a small country, or a forcibly removed population, they're underrepresented collectively-individual stories don't change the conditions that produce those refugees in the first place...
Viet Thanh Nguyen
Traumas, or very powerful, primal experiences, especially when they're experienced by large numbers of people, have a tendency to affect everything they touch. At that border, it wasn't just one person who died. It was many, untold numbers-mouths full of earth. I think when you have a massive collective experience like that, the trauma remains in the earth. I think the earth has a memory, trees have a memory, rivers have a memory. If we're a little bit open to it, we pick it up...
Kapka Kassabova