It seems to me that we live in dangerous times all over the world: we have the technology to remember everything but a desire to forget the troubling and to seek the safety of numbness. Fiction can do something about that.

To my mind, forgetting is a risky strategy for living. Memory is essential to us. It is DNA. We need to remember, and we need to imagine. That's why we have books, writing, fiction.

Whether it is better to forget and let wounds heal or remember and learn from the past is a crucial question for all of us, wherever we are.

Romesh Gunesekera Quotes