Eleven years ago today, on Friday, November 13, 2015, I was trying to memorise as many quotations as I could from a book written in Old French, as I was preparing for an important examination, when I received a text message: “Is your family okay?”
Wondering why my friend had a sudden interest in my family’s safety, I checked the news. It did not take long for me to realise that I would not be sitting that mock examination after all. The attacks that had struck Paris that evening were unfolding before my eyes through the news reports. Instead, I spent the next several hours trying, piece by piece, to make sense of the events of that terrible night, scarcely able to comprehend what was happening.
