Psychology Today | 23.08.2026 21:35
How do creative writers guide readers to imagine beyond their experiences? How can carefully chosen words make unimaginable pain imaginable? Zimbabwean author Yvonne Vera’s novel, The Stone Virgins (2002), describes a woman’s recovery after she is raped, mutilated, and forced to watch her sister’s murder during the violent conflicts of the early 1980s. To help readers sense what her character Nonceba is feeling, Vera cues them to cross-connect senses as synesthetes do.
