"Aux Frontières de la soif" is a novel set in the aftermath of the earthquake that struck Haiti on January 12, 2010. According to Martin Munro, Mars did not wish to write a novel about the 2010 earthquake because it represented a clichéd "duty" of Haitian artists. However, while traveling to the port of La Gonave Mars witnessed the dysfunction of the "camps" set up by various NGOs following the earthquake and was compelled to write "Aux Frontières de la soif". Camp Canaan, which is represented in the novel, resembles other "relief camps" established in Haiti as temporary housing sites that eventually morphed into semi-permanent locales. Camps like Corail are described and depicted in works like Jonathan M. Katz's The Big Truck That Went By: How the World Came to Save Haiti and Left Behind a Disaster and Raoul Peck's "Assistance mortelle".