Dear Readers,⠀
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Today is the birthday of my debut novel, 𝙍𝙚𝙨𝙚𝙩. A book birthday is a good excuse to have cake. Mine will be chocolate. ⠀
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It has been 4 years since I first began writing this story. The idea came to me after a frustrating night of writing, when I decided to erase everything I had spent months working on. As I was staring at the blank page, a series of questions came to me: What if humans could wipe our memories? What kind of world would we have? Why would it be necessary? Can you love someone you don’t remember?⠀
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Though Reset is a dystopia, I wrote its setting as a utopia. I used the lyrics of “Imagine” as a template for that peaceful world, and Buddhist philosophy as a way to achieve it. Buddhism teaches that detachment is the path to nirvana. If memories are the seeds of all forms of attachment, erasing memories is then a logical shortcut to peace. But every utopia is someone’s dystopia. And this world is a dystopia for those who wish to remember the ones they’ve loved and lost.⠀
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Thank you for reading Reset. This book is a conversation I was having with myself about our humanity and the connections we forge with each other. I hope you will enjoy your conversation with it, just as I did. ⠀
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With optimism,⠀
Sarina Dahlan⠀