Stories Bring Us Together, Silences Keep us Apart

Festival backstage, with Adania Shibli, Philippe Sands, Hisham Matar, holding our paper roses

I start writing this essay on board a train through the beautiful Welsh countryside. Outside the window, it is a postcard world: flocks of sheep grazing on sloping fields, farmlands and meadows in all directions, multiple shades of green dotted by flowers in bri…