#and of course i'm thinking about it in conversation with the ilya kaminsky quote

[sapphosewrites]

"No one returns from exile, ever. My country was no more, neither were the people the same people, nor I, Augusto."

-Augusto Boal, 2001

#yes i'm posting this because of garak i have a problem #but also! everyone is so enamored of boal and to #and yet no one ever told me the man was tortured by his state #no one ever talked about what it meant that so much of his work was developed in literal exile #and of course i'm thinking about it in conversation with the ilya kaminsky quote #the country i left no longer exists except perhaps in my imagination #something about: those exiled become the record-keepers #holders of memory #the nation moves beyond them and the people left behind change with the country #but it is preserved as it was in that moment in time in the minds of /as perceived by those it cast out #and so okay yes fucking fine garak #as the memory keeper in exile #of a cardassia that existed only in the moment of his exile