De Engels-Ierse schrijver Laurence Sterne werd geboren op 24 november 1713 in Clonmel, Tipperary, Ierland. Zie ook alle tags voor Laurence Sterne op dit blog.
Uit: The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman
“Horace, I know, does not recommend this fashion altogether : But that gentleman is speaking only of an epic poem or a tragedy ; — (I forget which) — besides, if it was not so, I should beg Mr. Horace’s pardon ; — for in writing what I have set about, I shall confine myself neither to his rules, nor to any man’s rules that ever lived.
To such, however, as do not choose to go so far back into these things, I can give no better advice, than that they skip over the remaining part of this Chapter ; for I declare before hand, ’tis wrote only for the curious and inquisitive.
———- Shut the door. ——–
I was begot in the night, betwixt the first Sunday and the first Monday in the month of March, in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and eighteen. I am positive I was. — But how I came to be so very particular in my account of a thing which happened before I was born, is owing to another small anecdote known only in our own family, but now made public for the better clearing up this point.
My father, you must know, who was originally a Turky merchant, but had left off business for some years, in order to retire to, and die upon, his paternal estate in the county of —— , was, I believe, one of the most regular men in every thing he did, whether ’twas matter of business, or matter of amusement, that ever lived. As a small specimen of this extreme exactness of his, to which he was in truth a slave, — he had made it a rule for many years of his life, — on the first Sunday night of every month throughout the whole year, — as certain as ever the Sunday night came, —- to wind up a large house-clock which we had standing upon the back-stairs head, with his own hands: — And being somewhere between fifty and sixty years of age, at the time I have been speaking of,– he had likewise gradually brought some other little family concernments to the same period, in order, as he would often say to my uncle Toby, to get them all out of the way at one time, and be no more plagued and pester’d with them the rest of the month.“
Laurence Sterne (24 november 1713 – 18 maart 1768)
Portret door Joshua Reynolds, 1760
De Nederlandse schrijfster Cissy van Marxveldt werd geboren in Oranjewoud op 24 november 1889. Zie ook alle tags voor Cissy van Marxveldt op dit blog.
Uit: Zomerzotheid
”Maar o, de jonkheer, ‘zei Ella – ze boog zich wat voorover, de chauffeur mocht niets verstaan – “wat een charmante jongen, zeg.”
Dot schaterde.
“Ik vond letterlijk niets aan hem. Níets.”
“Ssst,” zei Ella. “Hij heeft met mij zoveel gepraat. Hij is zeldzaam gedistingeerd en zo belezen. En vond je hem geen snoezig gezicht hebben?”
“Ja, snoezig,” murmelden Mia en Lenie.
“Op en top een aristocraat,” dweepte Ella. “Vind je niet?”
“Ja, absoluut,” fluisterden Mia en Lenie.
Dot en Pit knepen elkaar. Pit zei onverschillig: “Ik vond hem echt een type om in een tweedehands kledingwinkel als pop in de etalage te staan.” Ella blies bijna, “Ja, kan ik het helpen?” zei Pit. “Zo vond ik hem.”
“Och kind,” zei Ella, vernietigend. Ze draaide zich af. “En zulke intelligente ogen,” zei ze tegen Mia en Lenie.”
Cissy van Marxveldt (24 november 1889 – 31 oktober 1948)
De Indiase schrijfster Arundhati Roy werd geboren op 24 november 1961 in Shillong. Zie ook mijn blog van 24 november 2006 en ook mijn blog van 24 november 2008 en ook mijn blog van 24 november 2009.en ook mijn blog van 24 november 2010.
The God of Small Things
„May in Ayemenem is a hot, brooding month. The days are long and humid. The river shrinks and black crows gorge on bright mangoes in still, dustgreen trees. Red bananas ripen. Jackfruits burst. Dissolute bluebottles hum vacuously in the fruity air. Then they stun themselves against clear windowpanes and die, fatly baffled in the sun.
The nights are clear, but suffused with sloth and sullen expectation.
But by early June the southwest monsoon breaks and there are three months of wind and water with short spells of sharp, glittering sunshine that thrilled children snatch to play with. The countryside turns an immodest green. Boundaries blur as tapioca fences take root and bloom. Brick walls turn mossgreen. Pepper vines snake up electric poles. Wild creepers burst through laterite banks and spill across the flooded roads. Boats ply in the bazaars. And small fish appear in the puddles that fill the PWD potholes on the highways.
It was raining when Rahel came back to Ayemenem. Slanting silver ropes slammed into loose earth, plowing it up like gunfire. The old house on the hill wore its steep, gabled roof pulled over its ears like a low hat. The walls, streaked with moss, had grown soft, and bulged a little with dampness that seeped up from the ground. The wild, overgrown garden was full of the whisper and scurry of small lives. In the undergrowth a rat snake rubbed itself against a glistening stone. Hopeful yellow bullfrogs cruised the scummy pond for mates. A drenched mongoose flashed across the leaf-strewn driveway.
The house itself looked empty. The doors and windows were locked. The front verandah bare. Unfurnished. But the skyblue Plymouth with chrome tailfins was still parked outside, and inside, Baby Kochamma was still alive.“
Arundhati Roy (Shillong, 24 november 1961)
De Amerikaanse schrijver Thomas Kohnstamm werd geboren in Seattle, Washington op 24 november 1975. Zie ook mijn blog van 24 november 2008 en ook mijn blog van 24 november 2009 en ook mijn blog van 24 november 2010.
Uit: Do Travel Writers Go to Hell?
„So, travel writing, like any job, has its issues. However, travel writing is particularly disorienting since you are expected to work in a tourist environment that is built for pleasure. You must find a way to make yourself effective in that peculiar limbo between work and play. I imagine that the difference between traveling and professional travel writing is like the difference between having sex and working in pornography. While both are still probably fun, being a professional brings many levels of complication to your original interest and will eventually consume your personal life.
We travel writers live in perpetual motion. Relationships are transitory and fleeting. Friendships, even more so. Home is where you are on a given night. It is at once glamorous and pathetic, exciting and perversely routine. The longer you do it, the harder it is to return to normal life, and one day you wake up and realize that the road is your permanent address. There’s no going back.
This is the life that I have led, and this book recounts the beginning of that story.“
Thomas Kohnstamm (Seattle, 24 november 1975)
Zie voor onderstaande schrijvers ook mijn blog van 24 november 2010.
De Italiaanse schrijver Carlo Collodi werd als Carlo Lorenzi op 24 november 1826 in Florence geboren. Zie ook mijn blog van 24 november 2006 en ook mijn blog van 24 november 2009.
De Duitse dichter, schrijver, bibliothecaris en archibaris Ludwig Bechstein werd geboren op 24 november 1801 in Weimar. Zie ook mijn blog van 24 november 2008 en ook mijn blog van 24 november 2009.
Zie voor onderstaande schrijver ook mijn blog van 24 november 2008.
De Duitse schrijver Gerhard Bengsch werd geboren op 24 november 1928 in Berlijn.