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Stephanie Saldaña is an American creator and journalist who has spent a few years residing in and documenting the Center-East for a few years. In her new e-book, What We Keep in mind Will Be Saved (Broadleaf Books, 2023), she tells the story of six migrants who left their properties after the civil battle in Syria, and of the issues they took with them. In a deeply human story, she displays on reminiscence, cultural preservation and what’s actually saved when nothing else survives.
Voxeurop: The e-book has been out for a couple of 12 months. How do you are feeling about it?
Stephanie Saldaña: It was a e-book that took such a very long time to write down. It was an actual labour of affection to comply with these tales and to get to know these folks. And I, after all, had lots of nervousness about doing justice to their tales. In that sense, it was a reduction to have it out on the planet, besides, I’ve all the time felt very protecting of it. It got here out on September 12 after which October 7 occurred, and the world seemed elsewhere. I simply hope it is a story that individuals will return to in time. I feel that now greater than ever, folks want to pay attention to the worlds which are destroyed in battle and of the people who find themselves entrusted with carrying their histories. In a way, I really feel that the e-book is extra related now than it is ever been, even when it may not appear that approach.
This e-book is about confronting and surviving trauma. The folks in your e-book have the instruments to do this, they’ve a lot to supply and to show folks.
I feel they’re rememberers, the folks I write about. Individuals usually ask me how I discovered them. It is simpler than you suppose: each group, each household has its rememberer, and they’ll lead you to them. And these folks keep in mind, and by remembering they maintain one thing collectively in a group or in a household. And I feel this e-book is de facto folks sharing how they do this.
You open up the story by describing them as “hidden historians”. We see historical past as a story instructed by teachers or journalists. However your strategy to inform historical past via the tales of the folks, the hello…