A close family friend who lived with us when I was a teenager, only a few years older than me, lit herself on fire as a 17 year old to protest the circumstances of her forced marriage. I only met her afterwards, after the skin grafts, although the angry prickly grief was still present. She's an extraordinary person, but the agony and clarity that drives people to commit such extreme acts was very present to me then. Where we lived in India, close to the Tibetan border, it felt like there were many stories about self immolation for bigger causes: Bushnell inherits a long, tragic, morally urgent tradition.
A close family friend who lived with us when I was a teenager, only a few years older than me, lit herself on fire as a 17 year old to protest the circumstances of her forced marriage. I only met her afterwards, after the skin grafts, although the angry prickly grief was still present. She's an extraordinary person, but the agony and clarity that drives people to commit such extreme acts was very present to me then. Where we lived in India, close to the Tibetan border, it felt like there were many stories about self immolation for bigger causes: Bushnell inherits a long, tragic, morally urgent tradition.