De Litouwse dichter en schrijver Antanas Škėma werd op 29 november 1910 geboren in Lodz in Polen. Zie ook mijn blog van 29 november 2008 en ook mijn blog van 29 november 2009en ook mijn blog van 29 november 2010.
Uit: Steps And Stairs (Vertaald door Kęstutis Girnius)
„Our apartment house does not have a full-time janitor, so the garbage no longer fits into the cans. Wax paper, egg shells, a cracked cup, milk cartons He on the side walk. Across the street—a boy’s school. During recess four boys run to the area between two doors and play cards. Coins flash on the linoleum. The kids swear like old troopers sitting on bar stools in taverns. A carriage with an infant rests in the sun. He is dozing, the milk bottle and its slimy nipple slip out of his toothless mouth. His mother, a corpulent Ukrainian, is talking with a neighbor on the other side of the street. About money earned, about money saved, about money which floats above New York in thousands but settles as single dollar bills on Driggs Avenue.
I climb to the fourth floor. My steps splatter sound which sticks to the dusty walls. My steps rumple the high notes of an Italian song (a radio is playing on the second floor). Piles of accurately carved out steps accumulate on the stairs. I climb to the fourth floor, to the fourth, to the fourth, to the fourth. My steps are a mechanical saw slicing off the ends of planks. I climb among invisible plank ends flying in an enclosed space, surrounded by greenness I ascend toward the sun. On the top floor, not unlike an artist’s atelier, a skylight in the roof, the sun’s rays drill their yellow screws toward which the blind man thrusts out the viscous whites of his eyes.
Our neighbor is the corpulent Ukrainian and her large family. Husband, son, the son’s wife, the son’s son (the infant in the carriage), a sister, and the half-blind old man who now stands, head bent back, grasping the handrail, who thrusts out his eyes toward the sun’s yellow screws. He grasps the rails as a ship’s captain the spokes of the wheel when a thick fog is all around and murky white icebergs are ahead. He stands like this for whole hours, straight and immovable, an old and experienced wolf in this ocean of shimmering light.
Evening comes. The constant boring kindles the yellow screws, they redden, and the glowing light exhales a remembrance of a fire-site; and when the mechanic stops the saw, the screws revolve no longer, but cool and disappear in the approaching night. Below the ceiling a little electric lamp lights up. Covered with spider webs, the remnants of last year’s flies, the lamp announces that you have changed course, experienced captain.“
Antanas Škėma (29 november 1910 – 11 augustus 1961)
De Amerikaanse schrijfster Madeleine L’Engle werd geboren in New York op 29 november 1918. Zie ook mijn blog van 29 november 2008 en ook mijn blog van 29 november 2009 en ook mijn blog van 29 november 2010.
Uit: A Wrinkle In TIme
„In the kitchen a light was already on, and Charles Walace was sitting at the table driking milk and eating bread and jam. He looked very small and vulnerable sitting there alone in the big old-fashioned kitchen, a blond little boy in faded blue Dr. Dentons, his feet swinging a good six inches above the floor.
“Hi,” he said cheerfully. “I’ve been waiting for you.”
From under the table where he was lying at Charles Wallace’s feet, hoping for a crumb or two, Fortinbras raised his slender dark head in greeting to Meg and his tail thumped against the floor. Fortinbras had arrived on their doorstep, a half-grown puppy, scrawny and abandoned, one winter night. He was, Meg’s father had decided, part Llewellyn setter and part greyhound, and he had a slender, dark beauty that was all his own.
“Why didn’t you come up to the attic?” Meg asked her brother, speaking as though he were at least her own age. “I’ve been scared stiff.”
“Too windy up in that attic of yours,” the little boy said. “I knew you’d be down. I put some milk on the stove for you. It ought to be hot by now.”
How did Charles Wallace always know about her? How could he always tell? He never knew – or seemed to care – what Dennys or Sandy were thinking. It was his mother’s mind, and Meg’s, that he probed with a frightening accuracy.
Was it because people were a little afraid of him that they whispered about the Murry’s youngest child, who was rumored to be not quite bright? “I’ve heard that clever people often have subnormal children,” Meg had once overheard. “The two boys seem to be nice, regular children, but that unattractive girl and the baby boy certainly aren’t all there.”
Madeleine L’Engle (29 november 1918 – 6 september 2007)
De Oostenrijkse schrijver Ludwig Anzengruber werd geboren op 29 november 1839 in Wenen. Zie ook alle tags voor Ludwig Anzengruber op dit blog.
Bauersleut im Künstlerhaus.
Es soan zwa alte Bauersleut’
In d’Weanstadt einikämma,
A Vetta thut s’ voll Freundlikeit,
Wo’s z’ schaun gibt, mit hinnähma.
Der Schlankel oba der hat’s a
Gar faustdick hinter ’n Uhren
Und hat sich amal mit dö zwa
Ins Künstlerhaus verluren.
Sö tappen da von Saal zu Saal,
Doch soan s’ no kaum im zweiten,
So fangt dö Bäu’rin mit amal
Zun winken an und deuten.
»Ui jegerl, Monna, schaugt’s af d’Seit!
Des nehmts an d’Seel’n sunst Schoden!
Do hängen g’molne Weiberleut’,
Dö trog’n am Leib koan’ Foden!
»I bin doch selber a a Wei’
Und woaß mi net zun fossen
Und woaß nit, wo mer da dabei
Söllt’ seine Augen lossen!«
Der Bauer stolpert neben ihr
Hinein ins nachste Zimmer,
Er halt’t ’n Huat vor d’Augen für,
Denn d’Sach wird allwal schlimmer.
»Mei,« sagt er »’s is a Sünd’ und Schond’,
Dös siecht jo wohl a jeda,
Doch kimmt ‘leicht ’s Molen ohne G’wond
Halt billiger; net, Vetta?«
Da wird die Bäu’rin wild und schreit:
»No dös möcht’ Gott verhüten!
Dös war dö rechte Sporsomkeit,
Dö söllt’ mer doch vabieten!
Und bin i hitzten a gleich olt,
I ließ’ mi so nit molen
Und nit in Güten, nit in G’wolt!
Mer dürft’ mi dafür zohlen!
»Daß i vor oa’m söllt’ so hinstehn,
Dös war’ a Untafanga!« –
»Na,« sagt der Baua, »loß nur gehn!
’s wird’s koana si valanga!«
Ludwig Anzengruber (29 november 1839 – 10 december 1889)
Zie voor onderstaande schrijvers ook mijn blog van 29 november 2010.
De Cubaanse dichter en singer-songwriter Silvio Rodríguez Domínguez werd geboren in San Antonio de Los Baños op 29 november 1946. Zie ook mijn blog van 29 november 2008 en ook mijn blog van 29 november 2009.
De Franse schrijver Maurice Genevoix werd geboren op 29 november 1890 in Decize (Nièvre). Zie ook mijn blog van 29 november 2008 en ook mijn blog van 29 november 2009.
De Chileens-Venezolaanse dichter, wetgever, filosoof, politicus, diplomaat, wetenschapper, humanist en taalkundige Andrés Bello werd geboren in Caracas, Venezuela, op 29 november 1781. Zie ook mijn blog van 29 november 2008 en ook mijn blog van 29 november 2009.