After each of our encounters filled with love and pain, she would tell me: "Your story must dwell, vigilant, under your skin, at the tips of your hai… - Évelyne Trouillot

"it smells like danger, blood, and anger around here. You know just what I'm talking about. Don't wait until your life closes in on you to know what to do with it!" (p63)

Two crimson nights, followed by so many days of silence. (chapter 1 p34)

I feed off of my observations, above all. Sometimes it just takes a remark for an idea for a story or a character to arise. Or unconsciously I store things away and the next time I sit down to write, they come back to me. Obviously writing is a digestion of our experiences. Certain characters of mine draw on the image I have of people in my life...But I think that what makes a text interesting is its capacity to go beyond one’s own experiences, to succeed in sharing a different world. This requires a lot of sensitivity, and also self-knowledge. Writing allows me to better understand the world in which I developed. If I really want to create meaning, I must be honest with myself, and not present a simplistic version of things. Most of the time this means setting aside my own experiences, transcending them.