“Structural reforms were as inevitable as the weather. They were adopted everywhere in the same form, because the past had failed, and we had never learned how to shape the future. There was no politics left, only policy.”

“I waved goodbye to my father and my grandmother on the shore and travelled to Italy on a boat that sailed over thousands of drowned bodies, bodies that had once carried souls more hopeful than mine, but who met fates less fortunate. I never returned.”

“Freedom is not sacrificed only when others tell us what to say, where to go, how to behave. A society that claims to enable people to realise their potential, but fails to change the structures that prevent everyone from flourishing, is also oppressive. And yet, despite all the constraints, we never lose our inner freedom: the freedom to do what is right.”

“My world is as far from freedom as the one my parents tried to escape. Both fall short of that ideal. But their failures took distinctive forms, and without being able to understand them, we will remain for ever divided. I wrote my story to explain, to reconcile, and to continue the struggle.“