ABSTRACT
The best storytellers are thieves and forgers. They steal their tales from everywherebooks, television, films, radio, the Internet, and even other living human beings. Sometimes they steal tales from their own experience that they revise, adorn, and dress in such a way that those who might have witnessed the real incidents would never be able to recognize them. Storytellers appropriate their stolen goods, make them their property, and re-present them as if the goods were their own material, which, in many ways, they are because storytellers always forge the tales they steal anew. They conceal their thefts by pretending their stories are their very own or by claiming they have borrowed them from some source and added their own original touches to make them their own. Some storytellers maintain their stories are absolutely true and original, whatever these words mean. But the truth of their stories depends on artifice. Put more positively, truth depends on art-the ability of storytellers to transform their material and make stories relevant for themselves and the people to whom they are giving their stolen goods. Theft and forgery are crucial ingredients for the making of a good storyteller, and storytellers are indeed morally good if they steal and forge to repay society for their crimes, that is, with the intention of changing their community and enriching it with their stolen tales. A good storyteller is an incorrigible thief and at the same time is the social conscience of society because he or she is critically aware of how theft and exploitation determine our traditions and govern our lives.
