At all times creative individuals have experienced the hard way that wherever power dominates there is also the force of exile. This dates back as far as Adam and Eve.

It is right, of course, that many writers and artists are ‘geographically’ in exile. Yet in my view, back ‘home’ they had already gone into inner exile since they became aware of the pain in the country where they were born and lived, or better still let’s say: since they felt a constant ache in their mind and soul because of the experience of the state’s injustice to the people; since they also strictly rejected the social tyranny accompanying the terror of the state’s force and the latter being used as a justification for destroying everything that is beautiful.

One of the magnificent quotes from Nobel Prize Laureate Mario Vargas Llosa about writers and exile is, “Anyone who doesn’t feel good, where he is, should go!”

Often, writers in exile are faced with the question why they left their country and whether ultimately this wouldn’t lead to a loss of their memories, to their forgetting those private and cherished places where they’ve lived for years. Do their works not then lose the warmth and familiarity of those who were still living in the country, and do their opinions not lose the same measure of authenticity?