When my publisher asked me to write a short paragraph about why I wrote this book, I did.
But it wasn’t a short paragraph.
I had trouble keeping it to one page. The reasons just kept pouring out of me.
In the end, I resorted to advice I give to my students about cohesion and coherence, and I managed to cut it down to one page.
It took over seven years to write Where the Soil Remembers, and each of those years was dearly needed to write this complex and emotional story of Selma, a woman trying to find a way forward after having lost everyone in the Bosnian Genocide.
Most history books focus on major historical events. They present the causes of conflicts, the actual conflict and the aftermath, in terms of number of dead, material damage and political repercussions. None explore what happens to those who survive war, genocide, atrocities. It is this absence in historical books that my novel seeks to address.
While the story is set against the historical context of the Bosnian Genocide, the book examines what happens after the horrific event. And this is applicable to any trauma survivor. As a survivor myself, I have had the same question as Selma: ‘How do you move forward when everyone you love is dead?’ Even though I was much luckier than Selma, I couldn’t stop thinking, ‘Why? What is the point of all of this, this life, the daily worries? Why do we do all of this?’
Just as it is for Selma, it was a long road for me to move forward, not beyond the question, but to be able to answer the question. The more I reflected on it, the more it became obvious that healing could not mean leaving the past behind. For survivors, for me, as well as for Selma, the past remains part of who we are. I needed to find a path to healing for my character, for anyone who has experienced loss, not by simply ‘dealing’ with the past, acknowledging it, then moving forward. I wanted to imagine a life beyond survival, a way forward that incorporates the past, a life that is happy with the pain, not despite the pain.
After I arrived at some sort of answer for both Selma and me, my next challenge was to incorporate this into the story without preaching at the reader.
The botanical theme of the book was a perfect vessel and metaphor. Plants go through cycles of growth, flourishing, decay and death, and, quite literally, use their decayed parts to grow new parts of themselves.
The other botanical element here is the idea of the grafting process. This is a horticultural practice, mostly used with fruit trees, that takes parts of two different plants and joins them together, so they grow into a completely new plant that is more resilient, more adaptable and produces better fruit.
I found my answers.
In this book, I explore how Selma, the main character, can apply that to her life, thus offering a vision of healing that readers may be able to recognise and apply to their lives.