Finally read #TejuCole's Open City (2011) & this passage, along with others referencing #Said, #Benjamin, #Didion, #Melville, #Coetzee, about plagues really stood out : "I read somewhere recently that the city of Leiden lost thirty-five percent of its population in a five-year period in the 1630s. What could it mean to live with such a possibility, with people of all ages dropping dead around you all the time? The thing is we have no idea" (200-201).
