“Are we going to die, Mum?” — that night, twenty years ago.

(This story is also on Medium. Follow me here.) I remember him falling into a river and clinging to something – a leaf or a stick – to stay afloat. He was injured, scared, and all on his own. The current was sweeping him forwards and ahead he could see he was hurtling towards the …

The Woman Who Taught Me How to Walk (Again)

“One Euro one, six for six. Very, very tasty, very, very good!” So went the song of the samosa salesman. He was a youngish guy of South-Asian origin, and I wondered why he sang in English rather than Catalan or – heaven forbid around these parts – Spanish. I normally find these hawkers irritating when …

Stories, and what they mean to me

The other day, my friend invited me to talk on Student Radio Maastricht, the radio show he works on. The topic of the evening's discussion would be stories - what they are, how they've evolved, why they matter to us. I thought it was a great topic; I’ve always loved stories. When I was a …