When I was a child in El Salvador, there were often helicopters firing bullets from the sky. I remember sometimes my parents would make us get up in the middle of the night, crawl on the floor and put mattresses up against the walls. Then we had to try to sleep under...
My family came from India when I was three, and settled in Niddrie in Melbourne, where we were the first Asians on our street. But we were soon welcomed by our neighbour, Max, and his wife, Pat. Max loved to talk to Dad over the fence. Apparently, he thought it was...
I was in prison for 17 years, 6 months and 16 days. At university, I started reading underground communist propaganda, which was dangerous. At that time in Burma, there was a one-party military dictatorship, and if you were caught with a communist paper, it was a 10...
My father was executed by the government after the Islamic Iranian revolution in 1989. I was only about 5 at that time, so it’s all a bit blurry. But I remember waking up one early morning and Mum saying, ‘We're leaving’. We didn’t even get a chance to say...
When my mum was 8 years old, she found out that her mother was going to sell her to pay off a debt. She ran away to a convent, and after that, she was looked after by the Catholic church. Throughout her childhood, she was moved from convent to convent because of the...
