Jul 092013
Immigration, exile, being uprooted and made a pariah may be the most effective way yet devised to impress on an individual the arbitrary nature of his or her own existence.
I knew something they didn’t, something hard to come by unless history gives you a good kick in the ass: how superfluous and insignificant in any grand scheme mere individuals are. And how pitiless are those who have no understanding that this could be their fate too.
—Charles Simic, “Refugees”, in: Letters of Transit: Reflections on Exile, Identity, Language and Loss, Andre Aciman, ed.