Introduction

Kundera’s epigram, ¹ like the work of recent historians, suggests that in political struggle we often “use memory as a tool of power.” ² The link between power and storytelling is hard-wired at the level of language, for the words “author” and “authority” have a common etymology. ³ “The state of being an originator or author itself authorizes, gives one authority,” one anthropologist observes. ⁴