“Siegel” is such a common Jewish name which can be traced to numerous families in Central and Eastern Europe, but it seems likely that my ancestors emigrated to this country from Lithuania sometime in the early twentieth century. While I’m not a genealogy buff and I’m not inclined to map out the minutiae of our family history, I occasionally speculate about whether I have any distant relatives remaining in that part of the world. I think about what it would be like to track one of them down and make the trip over there to visit him or her. I think about whether we would have anything in common besides a shared heritage. And what would this hypothetical cousin think of me? And even if I don’t have any surviving kinin the country, it might be interesting to see the town or village that my great-grandparents left behind. Maybe I could write a novel based on my travels as well as the circumstances of my ancestors’ emigration and somehow intertwine the two stories. I’m sure nobody has thought of that idea before.
How exciting! Moreover, as you are writing in English, you have this huge potential of readers. I have written my books in Dutch, which is quite a difference from the point of view of number of copies that can be sold.
In Belgium, one has to be a bit idealistic to become a writer. Or a bit stupid perhaps.
Mieke.