“He came up flailing and sputtering and began to thrash his way toward the line of willows that marked the submerged creek bank. He could not swim, but how would you drown him? His wrath seemed to buoy him up. Some halt in the way of things seems to work here. See him. You could say that he's sustained by his fellow men, like you. Has peopled the shore with them calling to him. A race that gives suck to the maimed and the crazed, that wants their wrong blood in its history and will have it. But they want this man's life. He has heard them in the night seeking him with lanterns and cries of execration. How then is he borne up? Or rather, why will not these waters take him?”

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Originally said in English.

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About Cormac McCarthy

American novelist and playwright of the late 20th and early 21st centuries, known for his stark, poetic prose and exploration of violence, morality, and the American South. His works like *Blood Meridian* and *No Country for Old Men* redefine literary Westerns and existential fiction.

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