Drawing on experiences of exile and repression, four authors discussed how stories preserve memory, foster empathy, and connect people across borders.

By Talita Facchini, Contributor

A family scattered across countries. Children speaking their parents’ language far from home. Books shared in secret. At the 2026 Frankfurter Buchmesse, a discussion about human rights repeatedly returned to the intimate spaces where political upheaval becomes part of everyday life.

The session, titled “Beyond the Headlines: Authors from Countries in Crisis Read and Reflect on Their Work and Human Rights,” brought together Chilean writer and journalist María José Viera-Gallo; novelist Heba Al-Wasity, who grew up in Canada as the daughter of Iraqi refugees; Turkish writer Ege Dündar; and Czech novelist Radka Denemarková. Moderated by journalist Shila Behjat, the discussion drew on experiences of exile, repression, and family separation, and their readings and reflections explored what literature can preserve when people’s sense of belonging is under threat.

Introducing the session, Melissa Fleming, the United Nations’ Undersecretary General for global communications, described an information environment in which relentless reports of conflict and democratic retreat can leave audiences overwhelmed—and tempted to stop paying attention. As a way forward, writers, working alongside translators and publishers, offer a way to connect readers with experiences that might otherwise remain distant.

“When human rights fall”, Fleming warned, “peace, development, social cohesion, trust and stability are also at risk.” Building on that warning, she highlighted the Global Alliance for Human Rights, an initiative convened by the U.N. Human Rights Office (OHCHR) to build coalitions and bring people across sectors together in defense of human rights.

Her appeal extended directly to the writers gathered at Frankfurt. “Writers have great power to bring abuses to life, to spark empathy, and to showcase action for a better world,” she said, calling on authors to join that collective effort.

For Chilean writer Viera-Gallo, whose Tú también eres extraña explores childhood in exile, family extended into the community of Chileans around her in Italy during Augusto Pinochet’s dictatorship. Growing up without grandparents and cousins nearby, the children of exiles became one another’s siblings. And their parents’ struggle for democracy shaped the values they carried into adulthood.

“The resistance was to speak Spanish,” she recalled, even as Italian became the language the children used among themselves.

Al-Wasity described a related experience growing up in Canada, far from her extended family in Iraq. Her immediate family became her connection to a homeland and culture she could not encounter in the same way as her parents. Maintaining those bonds despite war, threats, and displacement was itself a form of resistance.

Family memories also revealed the risks of writing and reading under repression. Dündar recalled how support from writers and readers after his journalist father’s imprisonment gave him an expanded sense of family, inspiring his own work with PEN International.

Denemarková remembered her father keeping books that could not circulate freely in communist Czechoslovakia—an early lesson in literature’s power and the dangers surrounding it.

“Human rights,” she argued, “begin in the kitchen, at home, and within the family.”

“Literature is an opportunity to tell untold stories, to connect with people through intimate experience, and to rewrite and defend memory,” Viera-Gallo said. At a time when the past is being erased or reshaped, she argued, small, personal stories can preserve emotional truths that political discourse struggles to convey.

That connection demands action, too. Denemarková urged fellow writers to support colleagues facing persecution before the danger becomes impossible to ignore. Solidarity, she insisted, cannot be reduced to publicity or social media gestures. “It is life,” she stressed. “It is reality.”

Dündar emphasized that such support also transforms those offering it. “When you meet people who are in different circumstances, you get inspired,” he said. “You get empowered. And together you can build a community.”

Those relationships can endure long after a campaign ends, or a writer leaves prison, creating networks of mutual support. “Think beyond your job description,” he offered to those wondering how to help. “Just be human, and see what you can do for somebody.”