Joseph Anton An Autobiography

When he was a young boy, his father would tell him at bedtime the wondrous and magnificent tales of the East, telling them, retelling them, composing them, and inventing them in his own way. Among them were the stories of Scheherazade from “One Thousand and One Nights,” tales told against death to demonstrate the power of stories to civilize and overcome even the most criminal tyrants. Among them were also fables about animals, tales of mighty heroes, and the adventures of Hatim al-Ta’i… To grow up listening to these tales meant learning an unforgettable lesson: First, that the stories were not true, but because they were not true, they were able to make him feel and know truths that reality could not tell him. Second, that they all belonged to him, as they belonged to his father, Anis, and to everyone else.
They were stories of light and dark, sacred and blasphemous, for him to change, renew, discard, and pick up again whenever he wished, for him to laugh at and rejoice in, and for them to give him life in return. Man is a storytelling animal, the only being on earth who tells himself stories to understand what kind of creature he is. Storytelling was his birthright, and no one can take it away from him.