I’ve experienced the delight of melding with fictional characters whose life experiences had nothing to do with mine countless times. First, the notion of “relatability” as a criterion for evaluating work puzzles me. The question never ceases to surprise, for several reasons. Over the years, both friends and strangers have asked me why I so often write, with apparent sympathy, about deeply troubled and not especially relatable figures. It was the 16th-century Mongolian warlord Altan Khan who, needing the soft power of religion to help tame his subjects, gave Tibet’s spiritual leader the title of “Dalai Lama,” meaning, roughly, “Ocean of Wisdom.” She simply could not fathom what in Buddhism I found appealing. The matter came up because of my interest in Tibetan Buddhism. Ever since the kingdom of Kyivan Rus, once one of the largest empires in Europe, fell before the Mongol invasion, up until about 30 years ago, when Ukraine reclaimed its independence, the country remained subject to various colonial powers. In particular, she had never forgiven him for unleashing the Golden Horde whose armies took down Kyiv early in the 13th century. But, half a century after becoming an American citizen, Genghis Khan remained at the top of her shit list. She often spoke of the dirty looks she’d get when she sat next to Black people on the bus.
She was shocked by the racial prejudices afflicting her new neighbors. My mother, a refugee who arrived in the United States in 1950 at the age of 27, after five years in a refugee camp in Germany, was a remarkably open soul.
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