De Surinaamse schrijver Nardo Aluman (eig. Ronald Renardo Aloema) werd geboren in Christiaankondre op 19 oktober 1946. Zie ook alle tags voor Nardo Aluman op dit blog en eveneens mijn blog van 19 oktober 2010
Uit: Epakano Jakonombo/Tijdens de opstanding
“Heel, heel lang voor de witte man kwam, bestond er een welvarend en vreugdevol dorpje aan de bovenloop van de Amana-rivier in het huidige Frans-Guyana. De naam Amana (Mana) is ontleend aan een soort klei. Het is een roodgele klei en komt veel voor aan de oevers van deze rivier. Van deze klei vervaardigen de Caraïbische vrouwen van de dorpen Awara en Galibi nog altijd hun aardewerk. Het dorp was gevestigd bij een grote Ulemari-boom en heette daarom Ulemari-undy (de stam van de Ulemari).
De rivier Amana leverde tal van middelen van bestaan. Aan vis en vlees had men in het dorp dan ook nooit gebrek. De bevolking van Ulemari-undy deed ook aan landbouw en het dorp was volbeplant met allerlei soorten vruchtbomen. De bewoners vormden een grote familie die onder leiding stond van een pyjai. Deze man was één van de grootste pyjai’s in de Guyana’s. Iedereen in de Guyana’s kende hem en men had veel eerbied voor hem. Zijn onderdanen durfden hem niet bij zijn naam te noemen en daarom wist niemand hoe hij heette. Zijn aanspreektitel was ‘Byjai’, dat betekent leermeester. Zoals het overal in de wereld toegaat, had deze Byjai ook tegenstanders in de andere dorpen; mensen die niet van hem hielden, omdat zij jaloers op hem waren. Maar waarom was men eigenlijk jaloers op hem? Wel, deze man bezat een aantal bijzondere gaven. Zo kon hij zich op bepaalde momenten één maken met de natuur. De vogels en andere dieren, dus ook de wilde poema, gehoorzaamden hem. Hij kon met ze spelen en hun opdrachten geven. Hij alleen kon met de totale natuur communiceren, zelfs met het kleinste levende wezen, zoals de krekel. Soms, als hij zin had, ging hij met de vogels op pad. Geen wonder dat deze man nooit problemen had met het vergaren van voedsel voor zijn gezin. Natuurlijk waren er mannen in het dorp die erachter wilden komen hoe hij dat allemaal deed.”
Nardo Aluman (Christiaankondre, 19 oktober 1946)
De Amerikaanse schrijver Andrew Vachss werd geboren op 19 oktober 1942 in New York. Zie ook alle tags voor Andrew Vachss op dit blog en eveneens mijn blog van 19 oktober 2010
Uit:Mask Market
“The night man sitting across from me calls himself Charlie Jones—the kind of motel-register name you hear a lot down where I live. A long time ago, I’d done a few jobs he’d brought to me. The way Charlie works it; he makes his living from finder’ s fees. Kind of a felonious matchmaker—you tell him the problem you need solved, he finds you a pro that specializes in it.
Charlie pointedly looked down at my hands. I kept them flat on the chipped blue Formica tabletop, palms down. He placed his own hands in the same position, showing me his ID.
The backs of his frail-looking hands were incongruously cabled with thick veins. The skin around his fingernails was beta-carotene orange. The tip of the little finger on his right hand was missing. I nodded my confirmation. Yeah, he was the man I remembered.
Charlie looked at my own hands for a minute, then up at me. The Burke he knew never had a tattoo, but he nodded, just as I had. Charlie was a tightrope dancer—perfect balance was his survival tool. His nod told me not to worry about whether he believed the story that I was Burke’s brother. By him, it was true enough. Where we live, that’s the same as good enough.
“It’s a nice story,” I said, watching as he lit his third cigarette of the meet. Burke was a heavy smoker. Me, I don’t smoke … except when I need to convince someone out of my past that I’m still me.
“It’s not my story,” Charlie reminded me. “Your brother, he was an ace at finding people. Best tracker in the city. I figure he must have taught you some things.”
Charlie never invested himself emotionally in any matches he made. He was way past indifferent, as colorless as the ice storm that grayed the window of the no-name diner where we were meeting. But Charlie had something besides balance going for him. He was a pure specialist, a middleman who never got middled. What that means is, Charlie wouldn’ t do anything except make his matches.”
Andrew Vachss (New York, 19 oktober 1942)
De Britse schrijver John le Carré werd geboren op 19 oktober 1931 in Poole, Dorset, Engeland. Zie ook alle tags voor John le Carréop dit blog en eveneens mijn blog van 19 oktober 2010
Uit : A Delicate Truth
« On a sunny Sunday early in that same spring, a 31-year-old British foreign servant earmarked for great things sat alone at the pavement table of a humble Italian cafe in London’s Soho, steeling himself to perform an act of espionage so outrageous that, if detected, it would cost him his career and his freedom: namely, recovering a tape recording, illicitly made by himself, from the Private Office of a Minister of the Crown whom it was his duty to serve and advise to the best of his considerable ability.
His name was Toby Bell and he was entirely alone in his criminal contemplations. No evil genius controlled him, no paymaster, provocateur or sinister manipulator armed with an attache case stuffed with hundred-dollar bills was waiting round the corner, no activist in a ski mask. He was in that sense the most feared creature of our contemporary world: a solitary decider. Of a forthcoming clandestine operation on the Crown Colony of Gibraltar he knew nothing: rather, it was this tantalising ignorance that had brought him to his present pass.
Neither was he in appearance or by nature cut out to be a felon. Even now, premeditating his criminal design, he remained the decent, diligent, tousled, compulsively ambitious, intelligent-looking fellow that his colleagues and employers took him for. He was stocky in build, not particularly handsome, with a shock of unruly brown hair that went haywire as soon as it was brushed. That there was gravitas in him was undeniable. »
John le Carré (Poole, 19 oktober 1931)
De Australische dichter Adam Lindsay Gordon werd geboren op 19 oktober 1833 op de Azoren. Zie ook alle tags voor Adam Lindsay Gordon op dit blog en eveneens mijn blog van 19 oktober 2010
To A Proud Beauty (‘A Valentine’)
Though I have loved you well, I ween,
And you, too, fancied me,
Your heart hath too divided been
A constant heart to be.
And like the gay and youthful knight,
Who loved and rode away,
Your fleeting fancy takes a flight
With every fleeting day.
So let it be as you propose,
Tho’ hard the struggle be ;
‘Tis fitter far—that goodness knows !—
Since we cannot agree.
Let’s quarrel once for all, my sweet,
Forget the past—and then
I’ll kiss each pretty girl I meet,
While you’ll flirt with the men.
Potters’ Clay
Though the pitcher that goes to the sparkling rill
Too oft gets broken at last,
There are scores of others its place to fill
When its earth to the earth is cast ;
Keep that pitcher at home, let it never roam,
But lie like a useless clod,
Yet sooner or later the hour will come
When its chips are thrown to the sod.
Is it wise, then, say, in the waning day,
When the vessel is crack’d and old,
To cherish the battered potter’s clay,
As though it were virgin gold ?
Take care of yourself, dull, boorish elf,
Though prudent and safe you seem,
Your pitcher will break on the musty shelf,
And mine by the dazzling stream.
Adam Lindsay Gordon (19 oktober 1833 – 24 juni 1870)
Borstbeeld in Ballarat