“I wanted to remember his body with all my being—from his hair down to the tips of his toes. I could conjure up, vividly, his green eyes, the lock of his hair falling over his forehead, the curve of his shoulders. I could feel his teeth, the inside of his mouth, the shape of this thighs, the texture of his skin. I reflected that there was very little difference between this reconstruction and an hallucination, between memory and madness.”

— Annie Ernaux, Simple Passion (trans. Tanya Leslie)