Something as radical as a war can only be understood (if at all) through the collaboration of journalists, academia, artists and, of course, people.

A book is not only written - after it's finished it starts writing you, the writer. You become its notebook, its sheet of paper on which it forces you to think and rethink your original ideas, your topics, your research, actually everything.

Dealing with all the questions once the book is out and unchangeable, forces you to permanently give opinions about - in this case - sensible, challenging topics that you are basically only half the expert you would have to be if you wanted to explain yourself in a trustworthy, intelligent and helpful manner.

By changing the way I experienced things, even just involving different details than in reality, I often felt I was betraying the past and playing an unfair game with the reader where he (of course) would ask himself Did this really happen?

It just seemed to me so utterly wrong to credit someone's work just for the fact that this someone migrated from one place to another. We all move. We are all leavers and new beginners at some point, and yes, it is a huge leap from war to peace, from one language to another, from Boston, MA to Joplin, MO.

I just feel much more secure about whatever I write if I stand with one foot in reality - meaning if the stories I write about have a core of this actually (could have) happened.

It can stand in the way of narration in cases where we want the protagonist to actually go through some kind of catharsis while our own (non-fictional) experiences and stories lead to something banal or completely uninteresting.