Shula

“When Lev’s tired father, Maksim, came home one night to behold his son repeating those words, he sat down at their table, put his head in his hands, and mumbled: He was born in Izyum but it was once called Izyumchik and before that it was something else lost to his generation. He does not see that soil by another name is the same soil. He imagines that a word can alter a shape. But you must teach him, my beloved, that it is the land that carries our suffering when we die. It is the land that remains the same, no matter what we call ourselves. And what he meant, Lev would later learn, was this: that only soil will remember who we are, nothing but earth is strong enough to withstand the burden of memory. To become unknown, it is not enough to shift a name, one must go where the land has always been a stranger to those who share your blood.”
― Maaza Mengiste, The Shadow King