On Writing and Power

On the second day of my arrival, I received the very sad news of passing of fellow PEN Canada writer-in-exile Aaron Berhane. He was an Eritrean journalist forced to leave his homeland and live far from his family for years, before reuniting with them in Canada. COVID took his life away. I remember standing at the window of your childhood bedroom, staring tearfully at the cherry tree. The broken limb pierced my heart. I was told it was lost to a storm in January. It reminded me of Aaron and all those like him who are gone. The tree seemed like a wounded humanity who has lost a dear member.

It was a sad start, but I set out to do the work I had come here to do. “Letters and Diaries” is the working title of the novel I am developing here. It is based on letters and diaries that I kept over the one-and-a-half-year period that I lived in Turkey as a stateless person. Through this novel, I am trying to give voice to the experience of statelessness and to shed light on collective history via a personal one.

I was fascinated by learning that you started Obasan after reading Muriel Kitagawa’s letters about the injustices inflicted on Japanese Canadians. I never imagined one day I would be in your house, revising what I had written based on letters contemplating the sufferings of Iranians.

While reviewing the letters, I came across the cries of a powerless, helpless soul: