“When a book leaves its mark on me, it never goes away.” – Pervenche Berès

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Because I take too much time, I am considered as a “bad reader”…It is something I regret, but as a result, when a book leaves its mark on me, it never goes away.

Those memorable books I read include “The Plague”, by Albert Camus, whose last words helped Jean-Christophe Cambadélis to conclude the address he gave during the national office’s meeting which took place on 15 November 2015, not long after the sinister Friday on which terrorists violently took the lives of happy Parisians that were sitting at the tables of bars: “(…) He knew what those jubilant crowds did not know, (…) that the plague bacillus (…) would rouse up its rats again and send them forth to die in a happy city .”

Shortly after, a dear friend of mine recommended that I read “The Mersault Investigation”. I saw in it a sign, and as it turned out, she was right: I enjoyed it deeply. I like the idea of looking at things from the other side of the hill. In this case, Kamel Daoud looks from the other side of Camus, and Mersault, from the other side of “The Plague”.

Pervenche Berès, Member of the European Parliament