‘That’s how I felt!’ I shrieked internally, dredging up an emotion long buried but instantly recalled by a character’s experience within the pages of a novel. Were there similarities in temperament, interests and age between the protagonist and I? Perhaps. A direct correlation between events? Only loose. It was about recognising a reaction to a situation (in truth several situations). Shame. Reading the words I retrieved a memory cluster from the vault of my psyche, made friends with it, and let it go.

The penny had dropped. This was the power of literature. To help us make sense of our lives, reframe and reclaim our past, be present in our present and juggle the hopes and (at times debilitatingly frightening) fears we carry for our future. Fiction translates known experience into another language, but one we’re more fluent in, or simply more open to listening to, than our mother tongue. It’s an approachable place in which to find pieces of ourselves and, in increments, become more self-aware.

Journeying through words we have the opportunity, often unexpectedly and at random, to disembark in alternative contexts, grafting onto them and making use of the rejuvenating life force they provide. It's a gift of our own creation and we’re no parasitic leech on an unsuspecting host. The story continues to its conclusion regardless of our individual responses. Other readers in parallel motion get on and off at different junctures. We may meet at the final destination to exchange encounters or choose to reflect in private.

I was not that particular figure, in that moment, in that city, with that somebody. But the shame, the inner recoil, the self-loathing, that was shared. The personal and idiosyncratic had become universal and relatable. Literature creates a sealed self-help group in which we’re participant, witness and facilitator. For emotions as potentially corrosive to our identity as shame, this awful, simulated reality becomes our safe space for healing. We can turn towards it and in doing so turn back and face ourselves.

With thanks to Coco Mellors, author of Cleopatra and Frankenstein, for expressing all that we could leave unsaid.