How can fiction illuminate history?

Fiction allows us to explore the spaces where the archive falls silent — the private moments, emotions, and moral choices that rarely survive in official records.
By imagining the inner lives of people shaped by real events, fiction can reveal truths about fear, love, duty, and resilience that pure documentation cannot convey.
In An Attractive Naivety and Ashes and Sakura, I use storytelling to bridge those silences — not to distort history, but to enable readers to imagine what it was like to participate in the events.