“An initial impulse of mine was to portray the way in which a city is impacted by war. But this is vague, no? After all, how do you actually have an entire city - or country, for that matter - be a character a reader can follow? One way is by making it smaller and personalizing it, by writing specifically about the citizens and the way they contend with the reality, even minutiae, especially minutiae, of their lives.” WayWritingWarCountryMatterCharacterRealityCitiesMinesReaderCitizensOne WayImpulseVagueInitialsMinutiae Author:Said Sayrafiezadeh
“I was trying to hold up a mirror to this country, to reflect the past years or so, and the varying degrees in which we've been affected by the war(s) that doesn't seem to end. And we've all been affected somehow, even if we have no connection to the military, even if we don't know anyone who's killed or been killed. No one escapes something so large.” IfsKnowsTryingYearsWarEndsCountrySeemsPastMilitaryDegreesConnectionsMirrorsAffected Author:Said Sayrafiezadeh