The plight of children left homeless and orphaned is particularly heart-breaking right now. As we tentatively hope that the fragile truce in Gaza will hold, and lead eventually to lasting peace, we also know that the futures of many of the Gazan children will be blighted, whatever the outcome of the war – by loss and trauma, by injury and illness left untreated, and for the youngest ones who suffered malnutrition there will be lifelong consequences to their development. The tragedy will go on for them, even if the peace holds.
Stories of the vulnerable, especially children, caught up in global events that they have no control over, have always called my attention. I love books such as “All the Light We Cannot See” (Anthony Doerr) and “The Book Thief’” (Markus Zusak). When I began writing my novels this was a central theme I wanted to explore - the experience of the uniquely vulnerable in the face of big national and global events such as war, pandemics, environmental catastrophes. So often, the individual is swallowed up in the statistics of collective events. Of course, politicians and journalists can’t cover each personal story, but in my fiction writing I wanted to bring the experiences of vulnerable children and young people into view, pull them out of the pool of mass statistics so that the human plight of those who perhaps suffer the most can be witnessed.
My second novel, angel wing, explores the fates of children left without parents, protection and guidance during wartime, following four young people left alone through evacuation, being adopted, orphaned, made refugees, or abused. Their stories are fictional but I feel they nevertheless convey some realities of the challenges those who are young and vulnerable, without home or parents in turbulent times, might face. Each has their own history, their psychological conditioning that makes them more or less resilient in times of stress and danger, their own hopes, aspirations and needs. Although the central story of the novel takes place during WW2, these themes are eternally played out, as wars (initiated by mainly old, white men!) continue to erupt around the world.
In my next EarthBody Conversations post I will be looking at ‘resilience and renewal’. We certainly need this right now!
Thank you for reading, as always. Your presence here means a lot to me.
Linda