Michael Ondaatje — Canadian Author born on September 12, 1943,

Philip Michael Ondaatje, OC, is a Sri Lankan-born Canadian novelist and poet. He won the Booker Prize for his novel The English Patient, which was adapted as the 1996 film of the same name... (wikipedia)

That's Anil's path. She grows up in Sri Lanka, goes and gets educated abroad, and through fate or chance gets brought back by the Human Rights Commission to investigate war crimes.
It's why you create characters: so you can argue with yourself.
A writer uses a pen instead of a scalpel or blow torch.
The first sentence of every novel should be: Trust me, this will take time but there is order here, very faint, very human. Meander if you want to get to town.
It's a responsibility of the writer to get the reader out of the story somehow.