Kari, what a wonderful, enlightening post. Even if I've lived in Europe for a while, I am still an outsider looking in on Europe and a lot of ideas I and my siblings had about Europe and all the countries in this area was shaped in part by the fiction that we've read that's set in this place. And while we have read history books and found the history of these places fascinating (they read like storybooks to us), our idea of what is Europe is still largely informed by the books we've read and the movies we've watched. (Oh Braveheart. I confess with some embarassment that we thought it was really true. But in our defense, that's how they marketted it.)

Personally, I don't feel that I am immersed enough in order to write about a culture that I've only begun to understand. I don't know if I'll ever write something that sounds European or is in any way European-like (setting and such).

I see the telling and sharing of stories in fiction or in poetry or in any other art form as a way of carrying on conversations with each other.

>>But to people inside a culture, that culture will not feel 'over', those myths and histories are still part of them. They still need them, even if it is only within their own small space. <<

Oh yes to this.So very yes.