At the mini-press fair in Mainz, a young foreign woman paused, lost in thought, in front of the pictures and books at our booth. We struck up a conversation and immediately connected. She was an artist named Athra Shalal, a refugee from Iraq, traumatized by four wars. On her smartphone, she showed me a painting depicting a village she had often visited as a child, after a car bomb attack. The image touched me. We stayed in touch, and I invited her to my birthday party. She brought me her painting as a gift; she wanted it to be with me.
