I began writing stories as a very young child because I loved the places that books took me in my mind. The possibilities of fiction filled me with wonder and hope. As I matured, I began to realize the great social value that stories hold, and how essential the presence of socially-conscious art is in a society. Through language, writing breathes new life into larger expressions of ordinary people’s lives, along with offering deeper, more nuanced insight into complicated histories and difficult social issues. Stories help expand our sense of compassion and understanding of others. They take us to places we might not be able to access otherwise. I wrote The Hunger Saint to understand how a practice as terrible as child labor could be normalized in a society oppressed by severe poverty. How might a twelve-year-old boy escape such a fate? The actress Viola Davis said that as an artist she wishes to “exhume those bodies. Exhume those stories — the stories of the people who dreamed big and never saw those dreams to fruition, people who fell in love and lost.” There is a kind of justice to storytelling, perhaps even a sense of redemption. I hope to offer through my writing a greater understanding of how people are transformed by suffering, and ultimately transcend it.

https://www.oliviacerrone.com/