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L'auteur a précisé qu'il n'avait gardé aucun souvenir de cette horreur.

L'auteur a précisé qu'il n'avait gardé aucun souvenir de cette horreur.
The author stated that he had kept no memory of this horror.
From Lesson 314:Reported speech with past tenses·French

Questions & Answers about L'auteur a précisé qu'il n'avait gardé aucun souvenir de cette horreur.

How does the plus-que-parfait (avait gardé) work with the rules of reported speech in this sentence?
Because the reporting verb (a précisé) is in a past tense, the reported speech usually shifts further into the past (backshifting). If the author originally spoke in the passé composé (e.g., "Je n'ai gardé aucun souvenir"), it shifts back to the plus-que-parfait. However, if his original exact words were already in the plus-que-parfait ("Je n'avais gardé aucun souvenir"), the tense remains unchanged, because the plus-que-parfait is already as far back in the past as French tenses go!
Why isn't there a pas in the phrase n'avait gardé aucun souvenir?
ne ... aucun(e) (not any / no) is a complete negative pair, just like ne ... pas or ne ... jamais. You drop the pas when using it because adding it would be redundant, resulting in something like "did not keep not any memory."
Why is souvenir singular? Could I translate "no memories" as aucuns souvenirs?
In French, aucun literally means "not a single one," so it almost always takes a singular noun. You will only ever see aucun in the plural if the noun it modifies is a word that only exists in the plural form (like frais for expenses). For standard nouns like souvenir, always keep it singular.
Why use préciser instead of dire (to say) here?
While il a dit (he said) would be grammatically correct, il a précisé translates closer to "he specified," "he stated," or "he clarified." It tells us the author wasn't just speaking casually, but was deliberately making a specific point of clarification about his experience.

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