" The strange land exhausts him. Death exhausts him. It has fed on him in the way young eager goats suckle their mother, forcing her to lie on her side because she cannot continue. Death has taken everything from him. He has nothing left. He is thousands of kilometres from a village that no longer exists, thousands of kilometres from the empty tombs of the corpses who died only a few feet away from them. He is thousands of days away from a life that was once beautiful and delightful. "

― Philippe Claudel , La petite fille de Monsieur Linh