Literature

I just read a really really nice and well written book. Philippe Claudels La Petite Fille de Monsieur Linh (Monsieur Linh und die Gabe der Hoffnung) is a unique and surprising love story. It is a story of a friendship rising up between two old men who in their loneliness find companionship on a park bench in a noisy French city. Monsieur Linh is a Vietnamese refugee who has lost everything. He is a refugee washed ashore with a wave of other destitute boat people like himself. He is unbelievably sad for the village and homeland he’s left behind, for the son and daughter in law who were killed. His only reason to live is the infant granddaughter he has carried with him across the ocean, in the hopes of giving her a new home. He arrives in a cold and rainy city. Together with other refugees he lives in a home where he feels very lonely, but on a walk he meets Monsieur Bark. Bark talks and talks and talks, even Monsieur Linh isnt able to understand him. Without words the two men tell each other things about luck, hope and desire and they share a sad secret...

It really is a deeply moving tale about exile, loneliness and friendship!

read it!