Any of these developments could have provided more than enough material for the plot of a lesser novel. Here they take place off stage.
Messud's story, which she tells in episodes separated by a decade or so, begins in 1940 in Salonica (now Thessaloniki), as the Germans sweep into France and Gaston Cassar hears General de Gaulle make his broadcast calling on those French still "free" to join him and carry on the fight (Gaston doesn't heed the call, and will be haunted by that choice). She ends 70 years later, in 2010, in Connecticut, as Gaston's son dies in a hospice, tended by a Haitian nurse whose name, like his, alludes to a language and nationality foisted on them by colonial history.
Esta historia es de la edición June 07, 2024 de The Guardian Weekly.
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Esta historia es de la edición June 07, 2024 de The Guardian Weekly.
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