William Styron, Sophie van der Stap, N. P. van Wyk Louw, Renée Vivien, Jean-Pierre Chabrol, Ben Jonson, Yasunari Kawabata, Athol Fugard, Nnimmo Bassey

De Amerikaanse schrijver William Styron werd op 11 juni 1925 in Newport News in de staat Virginia geboren. Zie ook alle tags voor William Styron op dit blog.

Uit: The Confessions of Nat Turner

“There
was nothing to say. “Well, you was a success, all right. Up to a point.
Mind you”—he jabbed a brown-stained finger at me—”up to a point.
Because, Reverend, basically speaking and in the profoundest sense of
the word you was a flat-assed failure—a total fiasco from beginning to
end insofar as any real accomplishment is concerned. Right? Because,
like you told me yesterday, all the big things that you expected to
happen out of this just didn’t happen. Right? Only the little things
happened, and them little things when they was all added up didn’t
amount to a warm bottle of piss. Right?” I felt myself shivering as I
gazed downward between my legs at the plank floor and at the links of
cold cast iron sagging like a huge rusting timber chain in the chill dim
light. Suddenly I felt the approach of my own death, and with a
prickling at my scalp, considered that death with mingled dread and
longing. My hands trembled, my bones ached, and I heard Gray’s voice as
if from a broad and wintry distance. “Item,” he persisted. “By the U. S.
census of last year there were eight thousand niggers in this county,
all chattel, not counting around fifteen hundred niggers that were free.
Of this grand total of ten thousand plus or minus whatever, you fully
expected a good percentage of the male population, at least, to rise up
and join you. Anyway, that’s what you have said, and that’s what the
nigger Hark and that other nigger, Nelson, before we hung him, said you
said. Let’s figure that, oh, maybe a little less than half of the nigger
population of the county lives along the route you traversed toward
Jerusalem. Lives within earshot of your clarion call, so to speak.
Counting on the bucks alone, that’s one thousand black people who might
be expected to follow your banner and live and die for Niggerdom, and
this is only if we figure that a pathetic fifty per cent of the eligible
males joined you. Not including pickaninnies and old uncles. One
thousand niggers you should have collected, according to your plans. One
thousand! And how in the forenoon of the second day when at some
pillaged ruin of a manor house far up-county I watched a young Negro I
had never seen before, outlandishly garbed in feathers and the uniform
of an army colonel, so drunk that he could barely stand, laughing
wildly, pissing into the hollow mouth of a dead, glassy-eyed
white-haired old grandmother still clutching a child as they lay
sprawled amid a bed of zinnias, and I said not a word to him, merely
turned my horse about and thought: It was because of you, old woman,
that we did not learn to fight nobly … “Last but not least,” Gray
said, “item. And a durned important item it is, too, Reverend, also
attested to by witnesses both black and white and by widespread evidence
so unimpeachable as to make this here matter almost a foregone
conclusion.”

 

William Styron (11 juni 1925 – 1 november 2006)
Cover


De Nederlandse schrijfster Sophie van der Stap werd geboren in Amsterdam op 11 juni 1983. Zie ook alle tags voor Sophie van der Stap op dit blog.

Uit: Buiten spelen

“Het
is nu bijna drie jaar geleden dat ik Paloma heb ontmoet. Ik had toen
twee boeken op m’n naam staan; een biografisch boek en een tweede dat
ergens de weg tussen fictie en non-fictie was kwijtgeraakt. Wat kan ik
verder over toen zeggen? Ergens in huis lag een paspoort gevuld met
stempels en andere souvenirs aan mijn verre reizen. In míjn huis; niet
lang daarvoor had ik dankzij het succes van Meisje met negen pruiken een
appartement aan de Lijnbaansgracht kunnen kopen, maar ik stond heel
ergens anders: aan de voet van Montmartre en aan de voet van een nieuw
project, boek nummer drie. Mijn eerste echte boek, een roman, want écht
schrijven is toch veel meer dan een biografische overlevering. Al met al
was het een ander leven en misschien was ik toen ook wel een andere ik.
Alles zag er anders uit, of ik nou achterom keek of vooruit.
Ik koos
Parijs omdat ik me niet meer thuis voelde in mijn leventje in
Amsterdam. Het was te routineus, te ontdekt, te gemakkelijk misschien
ook.
Parijs was het tegenovergestelde; ik sprak de taal niet en op
mijn literaire agenten na – twee zes-talen-sprekende, drukke dames –
kende ik er niemand. In Amsterdam was ik inmiddels een big fish in a
small pond, in Parijs slechts een van de natgeregende jassen op straat
die stilletjes in de metro verdwijnen. Ik wilde uit die vissenkom
treden, uit mijn eigen ik. En dat lukte. Ik merkte dat de mensen me er
‘schoner’ bejegenden; zonder informatie is het moeilijk iemand te
plaatsen. Uit je buitenlandse accent kunnen ze niet opmaken of je van de
grachtengordel komt of uit Osdorp. Je bent onleesbaar, ongrijpbaar,
onaantastbaar. Je bent de buitenlander. Dat maakt wat alleenig, maar ook
universeler en uiteindelijk meer jezelf.”

 

Sophie van der Stap (Amsterdam, 11 juni 1983)


De Zuid-Afrikaans schrijver en dichter Nicolaas Petrus van Wyk Louw werd geboren in Sutherland op 11 juni 1906. Zie ook alle tags voor N. P. van Wyk Louw op dit blog.

 

O suiwer hart

O suiwer hart wat honger was
in al jou lang deurwaakte nagte
na lewe en versadiging
van trane en lag en wilde klagte;
wat so ’n hoë gang wou gaan
en al Gods denke wou deurskou
soos water in jou hand gekelk
en in die witte son gehou;
wat alle vreugde wou besit
en àl wat die aarde aan skoonheid het
of sonde of smart, soos silwer vis
vang met die lyf se brose net;
– o bloed wat brand, o trotse hart,
nog roer om jou soos wind die smart,
maar in jou donker en hoë wil
word dit soos in ’n kamer stil
nou dat die bitter trots gaan skuil
in deernis soos ’n klippie sink
deur die grys-wit water van ’n kuil
en bewend daal deur kring nà kring
van aldeur sterker skemering
tot daardie stil en diep bestaan
waaroor die sware waters gaan.

 

God, dat hul smaad

God, dat hul smaad my nog kan raak,
my hart nog so verwondbaar is,
waar U groot wind moes óm my waai
vir hùl tot skriklike duisternis!

Ek sal nie twis en stry met hùl
wat self so magteloos is, gevang
in iedere dag se kleinlikheid
van smaad en wedersmaad en dwang –

met U, met U is my geding,
wat my geskei het van hul ras:
dat U die skulp van stilte breek
waarin ek so verborge was.

Was dit my woorde wat ek sê,
was my begeerte dan in my daad
dat U my nakend voor hul stel
en voor hul dwase Goed en Kwaad?

U moes die nag wees rondom my
omdat ek vir hul duister is;
U moes my skulp wees, of die see
waarin ek één vér spoeling is.

 

N. P. van Wyk Louw (11 juni 1906 – 18 juni 1970)
Adriaan Roland Holst, Jan Greshoff en NP van Wyk Louw


De Britse dichteres en schrijfster Renée Vivien (eig. Pauline Mary Tarn) werd geboren op 11 juni 1877 in Londen. Zie ook alle tags voor Renée Vivien op dit blog.

 

Victory

Give me kisses bitter as your tears tonight,
When birds pause in their flight to wait.
Our long loveless unions have the charms
Of plunder, and the feral lure of rape.

Your eyes reflect the splendor of the storm…
Breathe out your scorn until you swoon away,
My very dear!—Unclose your lips in wrath:
I’ll slowly drink their poison and their rage.

Roused as a pirate before his precious spoils,
Tonight when all your gaze’s glow has fled,
The conqueror’s soul, savage and radiant,
Sings in my triumph as I leave your bed!

 

Vertaald door Samantha Pious

 

You for whom I wrote

You for whom I wrote, oh lovely young women without names,
You whom, alone, I loved, will you reread my verse
On future mornings snowing coldly on the universe,
By future quiet evenings of roses and flames?

Will you sit dreaming, amid the charming disarray
Of dishevelled hair, open robes, of her you never discover
Wherever you look: “Whether on day of mourning or festival day,
This woman wore always her glance, her tips of a lover.”

Pale, giving forth a fragrance to haunt my flesh and mind,
In the magic evocation of the night when love should be rare and free
Will you say: “This woman had the ardor I can never find.
What a pity she is not living! She would have loved me!”

 

Renée Vivien (11 juni 1877 – 10 november 1909)
Cover

 

De Franse schrijver Jean-Pierre Chabrol werd geboren op 11 juni 1925 in Chamborigaud. Zie ook alle tags voor Jean-Pierre Chabrol op dit blog.

Uit: La banquise

« Là,
on fait place à Maurice Candelaire, dit « le Clouque » (celui qui
couve), cantonnier municipal, coiffeur le samedi soir et fossoyeur à
l’occasion. Le Clouque se hisse, aidé par des bras complaisants, sur la
charrette et se place derrière la rouquine. Il brandit glorieusement ses
ciseaux, pas ses outils de coiffeur, non ! des « forces », ciseaux
barbares qui ne sont utilisés que pour tondre les moutons. Il fait mine
de s’attaquer à l’ouvrage mais se recule sans arrêt pour exciter la
populace dont les vociférations s’élèvent dans l’aigu. Enfin le Clouque
attrape à pleines mains la longue crinière rousse et la tire brutalement
vers l’arrière, démasquant ainsi le visage de la prisonnière qu’il
force à se tourner dans tous les sens pour que les spectateurs, de plus
en plus montés, n’en perdent rien. La prisonnière est très pâle mais
impassible. Sa figure est large, de proportions harmonieuses, le nez
droit, les lèvres charnues. A peine quelques rides aux commissures et
des pattes-d’oie au coin des yeux qu’elle ne baisse pas. Des yeux usés,
d’un bleu pâli, ceux des bergers de transhumance, yeux étranges qui
voient au loin avec ce regard qui semble pourtant tourné vers
l’intérieur. Elle n’esquisse pas le moindre geste pour éviter les
projectiles, débris de boîtes de cigares, emballages froissés, tout ce
que les pillards du débit de tabac ont jeté par terre et que les plus
montés ramassent à présent. Enfin, les forces attaquent la chevelure en
prenant leur temps, avec, entre chaque mèche, de grands moulinets de
ciseaux qui cliquettent dans le vide. A mesure qu’apparaît la peau
blanche du crâne, les applaudissements crépitent et les gens commencent à
rire. Ils se regardent rire les uns les autres, comme si chacun avait
peur de rester le seul impassible, car alors toute tiédeur devient
suspecte. Ainsi les rires se multiplient, se nourrissant les uns des
autres à chaque boucle qui tombe, jusqu’à devenir un fracassant fou rire
qui secoue Bouscassel, d’autant plus violent qu’il est né d’une longue
peur. Le coiffeur jette les frisettes et les mèches aux mains qui se
tendent. Le soleil une seconde, au passage, les transforme en lambeaux
sanglants. Quand la tonte est terminée, le Clouque salue dans une
révérence outrée désignant d’une main son oeuvre. Alors, suivant une
voix surexcitée qui se met à brailler : « Allons enfants de la Patrie…
», la populace entonne La Marseillaise. Assis sur le marchepied de la
charrette, tourné vers la tondue, le Pétronille, un gros homme flasque,
la main droite mutilée, n’arrive pas à retenir de gros sanglots
d’enfant. Mais le Clouque trouve autre chose. Il enlève le panneau
infamant. Il pose ses mains sur les épaules de la tondue et d’un coup il
fait tomber le corsage. C’est d’abord deux robustes épaules, bien
rondes, d’une chair délicate. »

 

Jean-Pierre Chabrol (11 juni 1925 – 1 december 2001)
Cover


De Engelse dichter en schrijver Ben Jonson werd geboren rond 11 juni 1572 in Westminster, Londen. Zie ook alle tags voor Ben Jonson op dit blog.

 

Third Charm from Masque of Queens

The owl is abroad, the bat, and the toad,
And so is the cat-a-mountain,
The ant and the mole sit both in a hole,
And the frog peeps out o’ the fountain;
The dogs they do bay, and the timbrels play,
The spindle is now a turning;
The moon it is red, and the stars are fled,
But all the sky is a-burning:

The ditch is made, and our nails the spade,
With pictures full, of wax and of wool;
Their livers I stick, with needles quick;
There lacks but the blood, to make up the flood.
Quickly, Dame, then bring your part in,
Spur, spur upon little Martin,
Merrily, merrily, make him fail,
A worm in his mouth, and a thorn in his tail,
Fire above, and fire below,
With a whip in your hand, to make him go.

 

To Censorious Courtling

COURTLING, I rather thou should’st utterly
Dispraise my work, than praise it frostily:
When I am read, thou feign’st a weak applause,
As if thou wert my friend, but lack’dst a cause.
This but thy judgment fools: the other way
Would both thy folly and thy spite betray.

 

Ben Jonson (ca. 11 juni 1572 – 6 augustus 1637) 
Anoniem portret in de Royal Shakespeare Theatrein Stratford-upon-Avon


De Japanse schrijver Yasunari Kawabata werd geboren op 11 juni 1899 in Osaka. Zie ook alle tags voor Yasunari Kawabata op dit blog.

Uit: The House of the Sleeping Beauties (Vertaald door Edward Seidensticker)

“As Eguchi looked away his eye fell to his wrist watch.
“What time is it?”
“A quarter to eleven.”
“I should think so. Old gentlemen like to go to bed early and get up early. So whenever you’re ready.”
The woman got up and unlocked the door to the next room. She used her left hand. There was nothing remarkable about the act, but Eguchi held his breath as he watched her. She looked into the other room. She was no doubt used to looking through doorways, and there was nothing unusual about the back turned toward Eguchi.
Yet it seemed strange. There was a large, strange bird on the knot of her obi. He did not know what species it might be. Why should such realistic eyes and feet have been put on a stylized bird? It was not that the bird was disquieting in itself, only that the design was bad. But if disquiet was to be tied to the woman’s back, it was there in the bird. The ground was a pale yellow, almost white.
The next room seemed to be dimly lighted. The woman closed the door without locking it, and put the key on the table before Eguchi. There was nothing in her manner to suggest that she had inspected a secret room, nor was there in the tone of her voice.
Here is the key. I hope you sleep well. If you have trouble getting to sleep, you will find some sleeping medicine by the pillow.
“Have you anything to drink?”
“I don’t keep spirits.”
“I can’t even have a drink to put myself to sleep?”
“No.”
“She’s in the next room?”
“She’s asleep, waiting for you.”
“Oh!” Eguchi was a little surprised. When had the girl come into the next room? How long had she been asleep? Had the woman opened the door to make sure that she was asleep? Eguchi have heard by an old acquaintance who frequented the place that a girl would be waiting, asleep, and that she would not awake. But now that he was here he seemed unable to believe it.”

 

Yasunari Kawabata (11 juni 1899 — 16 april 1972)
Poster voor de gelijknamige film van Vadim Glowna uit 2006


De Zuidafrikaanse schrijver Harold Athol Lannigan Fugard werd geboren op 11 juni 1932 in Middelburg, Kaapprovincie. Zie ook alle tags voor Athol Fugard op dit blog.

Uit: NoGood Friday

“GUY.
You mean the hotel? That’s the nearest I got to a job. They didn’t need
any musicians … ‘But we’ve got an opening for a kitchen boy’ …
‘Opening’, mind you! I should have told him, his opening was my back
door. Another bloke gives me a pat on the back after I’ve blown three
bars and says, ever so nicely: ‘You boys is just born musicians … born
musicians I tell you. You got it in your soul.’ So I says: ‘But a job,
Mister?’ And he says: ‘Nothing doing. Too many of you boys being born.’
You know something, Reb? I should have settled down to book learning.
That way you always eat. Like Willie. Now there’s a smart Johnny.

REBECCA. ‘Willie’s all right.
GUY. All right! He’s more than just right, he can’t go wrong.
REBECCA. He’s just like any other fellow.
GUY.
I didn’t mean it that way. I know Willie can go wrong, if he does some
stupid thing. What I mean is, it’s up to himself. But like me now … I
know I play well, everyone says so, even some of the top boys. But how
does that help me? I still get buggered around. And the way I see it
Willie won’t make no mistakes. What’s this latest thing he’s up to?

REBECCA. You mean the course?
GUY. Yes, that’s it.
REBECCA. First year B.A….Correspondent.
GUY. There, you see. Now who but Willie would think of that. [Pause.] Now … actually … where does that get him?
REBECCA. if he passes, to his second year.
GUY. Well, what do you know! [Pause.] And then?
REBECCA. The third year.
GUY. Doesn’t it end sometime?
REBECCA. If he passes that, he gets his degree. Bachelor of Arts.”

 

Athol Fugard (Middelburg (ZA), 11 juni 1932)
Scene uit een opvoering in Johannesburg, 2014


De Nigeriaanse dichter, schrijver, architect, en milieuactivist Nnimmo Bassey werd geboren in Akwa Ibom op 11 juni 1958. Zie ook alle tags voor Nnimmo Bassey op dit blog.

Uit: Power of poetry for global transformation

“Poetry
and song capture our understanding of life and provide us with
platforms to express ideas that may otherwise be inexpressible. Poetry
represents memory as well as vision. It is the chant as well as the
wail. It could come as joyous and exuberant calls, it could also come as
a dirge marking the crossing of the slim line between here and there,
between life on this plane and life across the river. The poet could be a
story teller, the griot, or the prophet. With eyes closed she sees
worlds that open-eyed folks are unable to comprehend.

In
sum, poetry is an expression of life. Poetry played a central role in
the precolonial African community. It still does. However, poetry in the
form of song is the dominant format in contemporary society. Dreams are
woven and conveyed through poetry. Defiance and censure equally find
potent expression in the medium. In other words, poetry can be
subversive and rallying cry for change.

As
a poet, I have noticed a progression in my relationship between my
thoughts, experiences and words. As a young poet, I was drawn to the
humour found in rhymes, limericks and the like. Poetry provided an
escape route in my struggles to understand the murky terrain of life. It
should be said that I grew up in at a time when my country and
continent faced serious political struggles. In the mid 1960s my country
was embroiled in the Nigeria-Biafra civil war. As a child I was witness
to brutality and suffered displacement and the indignities of being a
refugee in my own country. Thereafter, the struggle for independence in
other parts of Africa utterly radicalised by sensibilities. As all these
were going on, Nigeria suffered years of military dictatorship. Add to
these, the economic violence visited on Africa by international
financial institutions left deep questions. How do you say no in
thunder? – to use a phrase from one of the poems the poet Christopher
Okigbo (16 August 1932-1967). Okigbo died fighting for the Biafran
cause.”

 

Nnimmo Bassey (Akwa Ibom, 11 juni 1958)


Zie voor nog meer schrijvers van de 11e juni ook mijn blog van 11 juni 2017 deel 2.

William Styron, Sophie van der Stap, N. P. van Wyk Louw, Renée Vivien, Jean-Pierre Chabrol, Ben Jonson, Yasunari Kawabata, Athol Fugard, Nnimmo Bassey

De Amerikaanse schrijver William Styron werd op 11 juni 1925 in Newport News in de staat Virginia geboren. Zie ook alle tags voor William Styron op dit blog.

Uit: The Long March

“One noon, in the blaze of a cloudless Carolina summer, what was left of eight dead boys lay strewn about the landscape, among the poison ivy and the pine needles and loblolly saplings. It was not so much as if they had departed this life but as if, sprayed from a hose, they were only shreds of bone, gut, and dangling tissue to which it would have been impossible ever to impute the quality of life, far less the capacity to relinquish it. Of course, though, these had really died quickly, no doubt before the faintest flicker of recognition, of wonder, apprehension, or terror had had time to register in their minds. But the shock, it occurred to Lieutenant Culver, who stood in the shady lee of an ambulance and watched the scene, must have been fantastic to those on the periphery of the explosion, those fifteen or so surviving marines who now lay on the ground beneath blankets, moaning with pain and fright, and who, not more than half an hour before, had been waiting patiently in line for their lunch before the two mortar shells, misfired—how? why? the question already hung with a buzzing, palpable fury in the noontime heat—had plummeted down upon the chow-line and had deadened their ears and senses and had hurled them earthward where they lay now, alive but stricken in a welter of blood and brain, scattered messkits and mashed potatoes, and puddles of melting ice cream. Moments ago in the confusion—just before he had stolen off from the Colonel’s side to go behind a tree and get sick—Lieutenant Culver had had a glimpse of a young sweaty face grimed with dust, had heard the boy’s voice, astonishing even in that moment of nausea because of its clear, unhysterical tone of explanation: “Major, I tell you I was on the field phone and I tell you as soon as they come out the tube I knew they were short rounds and so I hollered …” Of course it had been an accident. But why? He heard the Major shout something, then Culver had heard no more, retching on the leaves with a sound that, for the moment, drowned out the cries and whines of the wounded and the noise of trucks and ambulances crashing up through the under-brush.
It was not that he had a weak stomach or that he was unacquainted with carnage that allowed him to lose control. If anything, he prided himself on his stomach, and as for blood he had seen a lot spilled on Okinawa and had himself (although through no act of valor whatever) received a shrapnel wound —in the buttocks, a matter which even in retrospect, as he had often been forced to remind his wife, possessed no elements of comedy at all. In this case it was simply that on the one hand he himself had been shocked. The sight of death was the sort of thing which in wartime is expected, which one protects one-self against, and which is finally excused or at least ignored, in the same way that a beggar is ignored, or a head cold, or a social problem.”

 

 
William Styron (11 juni 1925 – 1 november 2006)

 

De Nederlandse schrijfster Sophie van der Stap werd geboren in Amsterdam op 11 juni 1983. Zie ook alle tags voor Sophie van der Stap op dit blog.

Uit: Buiten spelen

“Die vissenkom is niet zomaar uit de lucht komen vallen. Ze had al een plekje veroverd in mijn hoofd en lag ergens, onder een stapel versere gedachten, te wachten totdat ik haar weer op zou pakken.
Op de dag voor mijn vertrek naar Parijs – waar ik naartoe ging om aan een nieuw leven te beginnen (ja dat kan) – kwam dit beeld van de vissenkom met Job aangefietst over de Lijnbaansgracht. Zoals gewoonlijk was Job niet met lege handen gekomen. Hij ging zitten op een van de lege stoelen om de keukentafel en ik schonk ons allebei een glas rode wijn in zonder te weten dat het boek dat hij dit keer voor me mee had genomen, er eentje was dat me heel lang zou achtervolgen. Of beter gezegd, leiden. Maar misschien is dat wel hetzelfde.
Op de voorkant van het boek stond een zwarte kat afgebeeld, en profil, niet zoals je je een Amsterdamse vensterbankkat voorstelt, dik en lui achter het raam, maar eentje die je voor je ziet als je aan Parijs denkt: balancerend over de glinsterende daken van de stad, de staart zelfbewust in de lucht en de pootjes elegant achter elkaar. Verder was er een stukje Parijse hemel. Boven die hemel stond de titel geschreven: Elegant als een egel. Auteur: Muriel Barbery. Ik had meteen zin om het boek open te slaan.
In het boek stelt Paloma, een hoogbegaafd twaalfjarig meisje, de vraag of het leven wel waard is om te leven als ze toch al weet hoe het eindigt: in een vissenkom. De vissenkom werkt als volgt. Je wordt erin geboren en je gaat erin dood. Je kunt een beetje naar links zwemmen en een beetje naar rechts, maar daar houdt het op. Soms raak je de wand en kijk je naar buiten, naar de wereld die erachter ligt. Het is er mooi en je kijkt lang, want daar is je fantasie nooit te groot. In de jaren na je geboorte leef je in de waan dat je leven nog alle kanten op kan schieten. Je kunt astronaut worden, bergbeklimmer, waarschijnlijk win je en passant nog een NobeIprijs voor de Vrede, en op een dag komt de prins in de witte Porsche langs gereden, hij steekt zijn hand uit en jij stapt in.”

 


Sophie van der Stap (Amsterdam, 11 juni 1983)

 

De Zuid-Afrikaans schrijver en dichter Nicolaas Petrus van Wyk Louw werd geboren in Sutherland op 11 juni 1906. Zie ook alle tags voor N. P. van Wyk Louw op dit blog.

 

Aanraking van de dood

Slechts rakelings streek over mijn haren
de wind van Zijn vleugelslag, en Zijn schaduw
was koelte rondom mij; ik kon niet zien
of Hij vernietiging of leven gaf,
ik kon geen laatste, dappere woorden vinden;
ik boog alleen, en rondom mij was een wand
van vrees, totdat ik kon luisteren, helemaal verblind,
hoe Hij vér wegruisde over het land.
Maar toen de vrees weggewaaid was van mijn ogen,
stond alles er nieuw bij, van vreemde smart
dooraderd en diep verbonden door alle tijden heen;
er was een grote liefde in mij, en mededogen,
en een besef van het duister in ons hart,
want alles was doorweekt van sterfelijkheid.

 

Vertaald door Peter Pit

 

Grense

My naakte siel wil sonder skrome
in alle eenvoud tot jou gaan,
soos uit diepe slaap ons drome,
soos teen skemerlug die bome
opreik na die bloue maan;

gaan met al sy donker wense,
en die heilige, nooit-gehoorde
dinge sê, waarvoor die mense
huiwer, en wat om die grense
flikker van my duister woorde.

 

Voël

’n Voël vlieg voor my venster verby,
’n naalddun lyn wat daaroor gly
en die glas in twee vlakke sny;

die wêrelde val apart en bly
elk in sy enkelheid geskei –
ek hierbinne, en daarbuite hy.

 


N. P. van Wyk Louw (11 juni 1906 – 18 juni 1970)

 

De Britse dichteres en schrijfster Renée Vivien (eig. Pauline Mary Tarn) werd geboren op 11 juni 1877 in Londen. Zie ook alle tags voor Renée Vivien op dit blog.

 

Lassitude

Je dormirai ce soir d’un large et doux sommeil…
Fermez bien les rideaux, tenez les portes closes.
Surtout, ne laissez pas pénétrer le soleil.
Mettez autour de moi le soir trempé de roses.

Posez, sur la blancheur d’un oreiller profond,
De ces fleurs sans éclat et dont l’odeur obsède.
Posez-les dans mes mains, sur mon cœur, sur mon front,
Les fleurs pâles au souffle amoureusement tiède.

Et je dirai très bas : « Rien de moi n’est resté…
Mon âme enfin repose… ayez donc pitié d’elle.
Qu’elle puisse dormir toute une éternité. »
Je dormirai, ce soir, de la mort la plus belle.

Que s’effeuillent les fleurs, tubéreuses et lys,
Et que meure et s’éteigne, au seuil des portes closes,
L’écho triste et lointain des sanglots de jadis.
Ah ! le soir infini ! le soir trempé de roses !

 

Les Arbres

Dans l’azur de l’avril, dans le gris de l’automne,
Les arbres ont un charme inquiet et mouvant.
Le peuplier se ploie et se tord sous le vent,
Pareil aux corps de femme où le désir frissonne.

Sa grâce a des langueurs de chair qui s’abandonne,
Son feuillage murmure et frémit en rêvant,
Et s’incline, amoureux des roses du Levant.
Le tremble porte au front une pâle couronne.

Vêtu de clair de lune et de reflets d’argent,
S’effile le bouleau dont l’ivoire changeant
Projette des pâleurs aux ombres incertaines.

Les tilleuls ont l’odeur des âpres cheveux bruns,
Et des acacias aux verdures lointaines
Tombe divinement la neige des parfums.

 

 
Renée Vivien (11 juni 1877 – 10 november 1909)
Cover

 

De Franse schrijver Jean-Pierre Chabrol werd geboren op 11 juni 1925 in Chamborigaud. Zie ook alle tags voor Jean-Pierre Chabrol op dit blog.

Uit: La banquise

“Le petit village cévenol de Bouscassel est en fête. Son unique rue, qui longe la rivière, est pavoisée de drapeaux rouges et de quelques drapeaux tricolores. Les gens rient, se donnent l’accolade à s’en étouffer, chantent des couplets de La Jeune Garde, parfois de L’Internationale mais surtout des refrains populaires arrangés pour la circonstance. Par moments, la joie s’exprime par quelques coups de feu tirés en l’air. Certains hommes en civil, arborant le brassard FFI, sont armés, qui d’un fusil de guerre allemand, qui d’un revolver… Ils ont rajouté ce qu’ils ont trouvé comme accessoires pour faire plus militaire, celui-ci un ceinturon, celui-là un casque de la guerre de 14… Il traîne là-dessus des souffles composés d’odeurs fortes où priment tour à tour la poudre, la poussière, la vinasse, la sueur et la crasse, et qui ont presque complètement étouffé le parfum des foins coupés, aux portes du village, que l’on rentrait dans les granges, il y a peu. C’est, dans l’air cotonneux de cette matinée d’un mois d’août torride, un pétillement très gai. Devant le bistrot de Marie, dite « la Rumeur » à cause de sa langue, les gens se servent librement au robinet d’un tonneau que son mari, dit « le Gamate » parce qu’il est aussi maçon, vient de mettre en perce. Le bureau de tabac a été pillé, chacun s’est servi, les premiers arrivés fument des cigares, les gosses jouent au canon avec la carotte de l’enseigne, en se gavant de réglisse. Une belle maison aux volets dos ne pavoise pas, les gens grondent en la longeant. Soudain, on se passe le mot : « Elle arrive, tous au pont !… » Sur le pont en dos d’âne, arrive une charrette aussitôt entourée d’une foule qui crie, certaines femmes hurlent à la mort. — Tipendjarén ! « Nous allons te pendre », le vieux cri, le hurlement oublié des rages populaires, semble resurgir soudain d’un lointain Moyen Age, tout naturellement, tout neuf. Au milieu de ce tombereau à ridelles tiré péniblement par un vieux percheron, sur une chaise, les mains liées derrière le dos, une femme est assise, une solide quadragénaire qui baisse la tête. Ce qu’elle a de plus remarquable, c’est une extraordinaire chevelure rousse dépeignée qui lui tombe sur les épaules et devant la figure qu’elle masque. En sautoir sur sa poitrine, une pancarte se balance au rythme du roulis qu’impriment à la charrette les coups de collier du vieux canasson sur les pavés disjoints de la calade. Cette planche porte ces mots d’une écriture maladroite mais parfaitement lisible même de loin. »

 


Jean-Pierre Chabrol (11 juni 1925 – 1 december 2001)
Cover

 

De Engelse dichter en schrijver Ben Jonson werd geboren rond 11 juni 1572 in Westminster, Londen. Zie ook alle tags voor Ben Jonson op dit blog.

 

Hymn To The Belly

Room! room! make room for the bouncing Belly,
First father of sauce and deviser of jelly;
Prime master of arts and the giver of wit,
That found out the excellent engine, the spit,
The plough and the flail, the mill and the hopper,
The hutch and the boulter, the furnace and copper,
The oven, the bavin, the mawkin, the peel,
The hearth and the range, the dog and the wheel.
He, he first invented the hogshead and tun,
The gimlet and vice too, and taught ‘em to run;
And since, with the funnel and hippocras bag,
He’s made of himself that now he cries swag;
Which shows, though the pleasure be but of four inches,
Yet he is a weasel, the gullet that pinches
Of any delight, and not spares from his back
Whatever to make of the belly a sack.
Hail, hail, plump paunch! O the founder of taste,
For fresh meats or powdered, or pickle or paste!
Devourer of broiled, baked, roasted or sod!
And emptier of cups, be they even or odd!
All which have now made thee so wide i’ the waist,
As scarce with no pudding thou art to be laced;
But eating and drinking until thou dost nod,
Thou break’st all thy girdles and break’st forth a god.

 


Ben Jonson (ca. 11 juni 1572 – 6 augustus 1637) 
Cover biografie

 

De Japanse schrijver Yasunari Kawabata werd geboren op 11 juni 1899 in Osaka. Zie ook alle tags voor Yasunari Kawabata op dit blog.

Uit: Snow Country (Vertaald door Edward Seidensticker)

“Black though the mountains were, they seemed at that moment brilliant with the color of the snow. They seemed to him somehow transparent, somehow lonely. The harmony between sky and mountains was lost.’
– Yasunari Kawabata, Snow Country. Translator: Edward G. Seidensticker
Small shifts in atmosphere, in emphasis, in tone of voice or choice of words, outlined against the contantly shifting backdrops afforded by the picturesque snow country resort town and its inhabitants take on great significance in this most subtle of novels. With both grace and economy, Kawabata unfolds the story of Shimamura, a wealthy dilletante from Tokyo and his liaison with Komaka, a geisha in the hot springs resort he visits. Shimamura is taken with Komaka’s innocence and simplicity; yet unwilling to fully believe that her professed love for him is real and not the pose of a geisha, or indeed that any sort of reciprocity beyond a never-defined, sporadic relationship without even the status of patron and favoured geisha is possible between them.
Both of them are, in some way, empty people, pursuing what Shimamura thinks of as wasteful effort. Shimamura, at one time a well-regarded commentator on Japanese dance and expected to soon enter into the fray himself finds his hobby getting too real and transfers his scholarly attentions to western dance, despite never having seen a ballet performance, and refusing to see ballets put up by Japanese troupes. Mountain climbing, another hobby of his, is also seen as a classic example of wasted effort – once you reach the top you have climb all the way back down again. Komako reads everything she can get her hands on, from classics to trash, and keeps a record of it all in a diary that she has been maintaining for years. She doesn’t try to analyse what she reads, or impose any quality control on it – she just reads omnivourously and keeps a record of it. She teaches herself to play songs using sheet music, with no exposure to actual peformance practise, creating a naive and affecting but essentially quaint and insular art of her own. »

 


Yasunari Kawabata (11 juni 1899 — 16 april 1972)
Cover

 

De Zuidafrikaanse schrijver Harold Athol Lannigan Fugard werd geboren op 11 juni 1932 in Middelburg, Kaapprovincie. Zie ook alle tags voor Athol Fugard op dit blog.

Uit: Hello And Goodbye

“JOHNNIE. All right I made a mistake. I forgot. I applied. Satisfied?
HESTER. You didn’t forget. You lied to me. You know you posted it.
JOHNNIE. I’m telling you I forgot.
HESTER. You knew they said you must come.
JOHNNIE. Can’t I forget things too?
HESTER. And you wanted to go!
JOHNNIE. Maybe … it’s a long time ago … ten years … My memory….
HESTER. Don’t try to get out of it.
JOHNNY [desperate] What do you want me to say?
HESTER. What are you trying to hide?
JOHNNY. Nothing. So leave me alone. Understand ? Just leave us alone. Take what you want and go! [He is squirming—then a clumsy move and the crutches fall—he stands on his feet.] Look, what you’ve made me do!!
[Pause.]
Yes, I wanted to go. They are the most beautiful things in the world! Black, and hot, hissing, and the red glow of their furnaces, their whistles blowing out like ribbons in the wind! And the engine driver, grade one, and his stoker up there, leaning out of the cab, watching the world like kings! Yes, I wanted to go. I could have gone. It was up to me. He didn’t say anything to stop me posting the forms in duplicate. And when I got the letter saying I must come he even said he was happy because now his son would also work for the railways. I said I’d come home for all my holidays to be with him and give the house a good sweep out. And when I was packing my suitcase he gave me one of his railway shirts—even made a joke, with tears in his eyes—said it would fit when my muscles were big. So there we stood with tears in our eyes, him on his crutches—me with my suitcase. He came to the door and waved to me all the way down Valley Road.”

 

 
Athol Fugard (Middelburg (ZA), 11 juni 1932)
Scene uit een opvoering in Kaapstad, 2016

 

De Nigeriaanse dichter, schrijver, architect, en milieuactivist Nnimmo Bassey werd geboren in Akwa Ibom op 11 juni 1958. Zie ook alle tags voor Nnimmo Bassey op dit blog.

Uit: To cook a continent

« What makes possible the lack of regulation in Africa’s extractive sectors, the open robbery and the incredibly destructive extractive activities? Leading the multiplicity of factors are unjust power relations that follow from and amplify the baggage of slavery, colonialism and neo-colonialism. From a Nigerian stand-point, but within the tradition of Pan-Africanist political economy and global political ecology, this book unpacks these issues and sets up bins for these needless and toxic loads.
Because of my own experiences, the pages that follow pay close attention to the oil industry in Africa, to the history of environmental justice struggles in the Niger Delta, to the discovery of oilfields in Uganda’s rift Valley, and to the big pull of the offshore finds in the Gulf of Guinea. As we examine the impacts of fossil fuel extraction on the continent, we also look at massive land grabs for the production of agrofuels and foods for export.
What can Africa do? And once our peoples decide, can the rest of the world act in solidarity? If not, will we continue on the path laid out by elites, a path that brings us ever closer to the brink? Must we live in denial even at a time of a rising tide of social and ecological disasters?
….

One of the worst gas flares in the Niger Delta is at a former Shell facility at Oben, on the border of Delta and Edo states. They have been roaring and crackling non-stop for over 30 years, since Shell first lit them. The flared gas comes from the crude oil extracted from the oil wells in the Oben field. As at more than 200 other flow stations across the Niger Delta, these gas flares belch toxic elements into the atmosphere, poisoning the environment and the people. Globally, gas flares pump about 400 million tonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere annually. Here in Nigeria, the climate is brazenly assaulted both in the short term by gas flaring and over the long term because of the CO2 emissions from this filthy practice. In the hierarchy of gas flares infamy, Nigeria is second only to Russia.”

 


Nnimmo Bassey (Akwa Ibom, 11 juni 1958)

 

Zie voor nog meer schrijvers van de 11e juni ook mijn blog van 11 juni 2017 deel 2.

Athol Fugard, Nnimmo Bassey, Jules Vallès, George Wither, Barnabe Googe

De Zuidafrikaanse schrijver Harold Athol Lannigan Fugard werd geboren op 11 juni 1932 in Middelburg, Kaapprovincie. Zie ook alle tags voor Athol Fugard op dit blog.

Uit: Hello And Goodbye

„HESTER. Ja, that’s right.
JOHNNIE. YOU will?
HESTER [ignoring his question]. You were always daring me. You used to find it—the thing you were too scared to do, and dare me, and watch while I did it and got into trouble. That’s what you want, hey? You and him. `Hester’s in trouble again, Pa!’
JOHNNIE. You won’t?
HESTER. No. [She goes back to the papers.]
JOHNNIE [to himself]. Too much to hope for.
HESTER. You won’t get rid of me that easily.
JOHNNIE. But I tried. Whatever happens nobody can say I didn’t try. Be brave.
HESTER [readingfrom one of the papers]. ‘Johannes Albertus Smit.’ That’s you.
JOHNNIE. Yes, in full. What’s it say?
HESTER [scanning the letter]. ‘Your application. . . The Kroonstad Railway School. From the Principal. Saying they accept your application to be a learner-stoker. And a second-class voucher to get there. November, 1958.
JOHNNIE. Too late now.
HESTER. But you said you tore up your application.
JOHNNIE. That’s right.
HESTER. Because you didn’t want to go.
JOHNNIE. So?
HESTER. So here he says he got your application.
JOHNNIE. These things happen. [Pause. Hester thinks about this.]
HESTER. No. No, they don’t. He wouldn’t tell you to come if you didn’t have asked him if you could come.
JOHNNIE. Where does that get us?
HESTER. You did post that application.
JOHNNIE. I see.
HESTER. But you told me you didn’t.”

 

 
Athol Fugard (Middelburg (ZA), 11 juni 1932)
Scene uit een opvoering in Kaapstad, 2014

Lees verder “Athol Fugard, Nnimmo Bassey, Jules Vallès, George Wither, Barnabe Googe”

Athol Fugard, Nnimmo Bassey, Jules Vallès, George Wither, Barnabe Googe

De Zuidafrikaanse schrijver Harold Athol Lannigan Fugard werd geboren op 11 juni 1932 in Middelburg, Kaapprovincie. Zie ook alle tags voor Athol Fugard op dit blog.

Uit: Hello And Goodbye

““OHNNIE. What did you want to do?
HESTER. Nothing. [Loo/ting a! the certificate in her hand.] Johannes Cornelius Smit-Anna Van Rooyen. Biggest mistake she ever made!
JOHNNIE. You don’t know what you’re saying.
HESTrER. Yes, I do! I’m saying this was the biggest mistake she ever made. Marriage! One man’s slave all your life, slog away until you’re in your grave. For what? Happiness in Heaven? I seen them- Ma and the others like her, with more kids than they can count, and no money; bruises every pay-
day because he comes home drunk or anOIher one in the belly because he was so drunk he didn’t know it was his old wife and got into bed!
JOHNNIE. Daddy never beat Mommie. He was never drunk.
HESTER. Because he couldn’t. He was a crock. But he did it other ways. She fell into her grave the way they all do- tired, maeg. Frightened! I saw her.
JOHNNIE. This is terrible, Hester.
HESTER. You’re damned right it is. It’s hell. They live in hell, but they’re too frightened to do anything about it because there’s always somebody around shouting God and Judgement. Mommie should have taken what she wanted and then
kicked him out.
JOHNNlE. And the children.
HESTER. So what! If you get them you get them and if you don’t want them there’s ways.
JOHNNlE. Hester! Hester!
HESTER. Hester, Hester what? Hester who? Hester Smit! That‘s me. I’ve done it. And I don‘t care a damn. Two months old and I got rid of it.”

 

 
Athol Fugard (Middelburg (ZA), 11 juni 1932)
Scene uit een opvoering in het Abbey Theatre, St Albans, 2011

Lees verder “Athol Fugard, Nnimmo Bassey, Jules Vallès, George Wither, Barnabe Googe”

William Styron, Renée Vivien, Jean-Pierre Chabrol, Sophie van der Stap, Ben Jonson, Yasunari Kawabata, Athol Fugard

De Amerikaanse schrijver William Styron werd op 11 juni 1925 in Newport News in de staat Virginia geboren. Zie ook alle tags voor William Styron op dit blog.

Uit: Darkness Visible

“When I was aware that I had been laid low by the disease, I felt a need, among other things, to register a strong protest against the word “depression.” Depression, most people know, used to be termed ‘melancholia,” a word which appears in English as early as the year 1305 and crops up more than once in Chaucer, who in his usage seemed to be aware of its pathological nuances. “Melancholia” would still appear to be a far more apt and evocative word for the blacker forms of this disorder, but it was usurped by a noun with a bland tonality and lacking any magisterial presence, used indifferently to describe an economic decline or a rut in the ground, a true wimp of a word for such a major illness. It may be that the scientist generally held responsible for its currency in modern times, a Johns Hopkins Medical School faculty member justly venerated—the Swiss-born Adolf Meyer—had a tin ear for the finer rhythms of English and therefore was unaware of the semantic damage he had inflicted by offering “Depression” as a descriptive noun for such a dreadful and raging disease. Nonetheless, for over seventy-five years the word had slithered innocuously through the language like a slug, leaving little trace of its intrinsic malevolence and preventing, by its very insipidity, a general awareness of the horrible intensity of the disease when out of control.
As one who has suffered from the malady in extremis yet returned to tell the tale, I would lobby for a truly arresting designation. “Brainstorm,” for instance, has unfortunately been preempted to describe, somewhat jocularly, intellectual inspiration. But something along these lines is needed. Told that someone’s mood disorder has evolved into a storm—a veritable howling tempest in the brain, which is indeed what a clinical depression resembles like nothing else—even the uninformed layman might display sympathy rather than the standard reaction that ‘depression” evokes, something akin to So what?” pr “You’ll pull out of it” or “We all have bad days. The phrase “nervous breakdown” seems on its way out, certainly deservedly so, owing to its insinuation of a vague spinelessness, but we still seem destined to be saddled with “depression” until a better, sturdier name is created.”

 

 
William Styron (11 juni 1925 – 1 november 2006)

Lees verder “William Styron, Renée Vivien, Jean-Pierre Chabrol, Sophie van der Stap, Ben Jonson, Yasunari Kawabata, Athol Fugard”

William Styron, Renée Vivien, Jean-Pierre Chabrol, Sophie van der Stap, Ben Jonson, Athol Fugard, Yasunari Kawabata

De Amerikaanse schrijver William Styron werd op 11 juni 1925 in Newport News in de staat Virginia geboren. Zie ook alle tags voor William Styron op dit blog.

Uit: Sophie’s Choice

„Sometime during my thirties the nickname and I mysteriously parted company, Stingo merely evaporating like a wan ghost out of my existence, leaving me indifferent to the loss. But Stingo I still was during this time about which I write. If, however, it is perplexing that the name is absent from the earlier part of this narrative, it may be understood that I am describing a morbid and solitary period in my life when, like the crazy hermit in the cave on the hill, I was rarely called by any name at all.

I was glad to be shut of my job–the first and only salaried position, excluding the military, of my life–even though its loss seriously undermined my already modest solvency. Also, I now think it was constructive to learn so early in life that I would never fit in as an office worker, anytime, anywhere. In fact, considering how I had so coveted the job in the first place, I was rather surprised at the relief, indeed the alacrity, with which I accepted my dismissal only five months later. In 1947 jobs were scarce, especially jobs in publishing, but a stroke of luck had landed me employment with one of the largest publishers of books, where I was made “junior editor”–a euphemism for manuscript reader. That the employer called the tune, in those days when the dollar was much more valuable tender than it is now, may be seen in the stark terms of my salary–forty dollars a week. After withholding taxes this meant that the anemic blue check placed on my desk each Friday by the hunchbacked little woman who managed the payroll represented emolument in the nature of a little over ninety cents an hour. But I had not been in the least dismayed by the fact that these coolie wages were dispensed by one of the most powerful and wealthy publishers in the world; young and resilient, I approached my job–at least at the very beginning–with a sense of lofty purpose; and besides, in compensation, the work bore intimations of glamour: lunch at “21,” dinner with John O’Hara, poised and brilliant but carnal-minded lady writers melting at my editorial acumen, and so on.”

William Styron (11 juni 1925 – 1 november 2006)

Lees verder “William Styron, Renée Vivien, Jean-Pierre Chabrol, Sophie van der Stap, Ben Jonson, Athol Fugard, Yasunari Kawabata”

Athol Fugard, Yasunari Kawabata, Jules Vallès, George Wither, Barnabe Googe

De Zuidafrikaanse schrijver Harold Athol Lannigan Fugard werd geboren op 11 juni 1932 in Middelburg, Kaapprovincie. Zie ook mijn blog van 11 juni 2007 en ook mijn blog van 11 juni 2008 en ook mijn blog van 11 juni 2009 en ook mijn blog van 11 juni 2010

 

Uit: Hello And Goodbye

„Hester: Somewhere else. Your were too young. They pushed me forward. ‘Say goodbye to your Mommie, Hester.’ I said it – but I couldn’t cry. I was dry and hot inside. Ashamed! Of u. Of her, Mommie, for being dead and causing all the fuss. Of him, Daddy, his face cracked like one of our old plates, saying things he never said when she was alive.

And all the uncles and aunties kissing him and patting hin on the back and saying ‘Shame!’ every time they saw you. It was those cousins of his from Despatch, who never ever came to visit us. The whole mob of them, all in black, the little girls in pretty dresses, looking at everything in the house and us looking like poor whites because there wasn’t enough cups to give everybody coffee at the same time. I hated it! I hated Mommie for being dead. I couldn’t cry. I cried later. I don’t know, maybe two days. Everything was over, the relatives gone. He was in bed with shock. The house was quiet like never before. Then there was a knock at the back door. I opened it an it was that coolie who always sold the vegetables, Where’s your Mommie?’ he asked. I couldn’t say anything at first. ‘Girlie, where’s your Mommie?’ then I told him. ‘Dead.’ I just said, ‘Dead’, and started to cry. He took off his hat and stood there watching me until I shouted, ‘Voetsek!” and chased him away – and sad down and cried and cried. Because suddenly I knew she was dead, and what it meant, being dead. It’s goodbye for keeps. She was gone forever. So I cried. There was something I wanted to do, but it was to late.”

 

Athol Fugard (Middelburg (ZA), 11 juni 1932)

Lees verder “Athol Fugard, Yasunari Kawabata, Jules Vallès, George Wither, Barnabe Googe”

Athol Fugard, Yasunari Kawabata, Jules Vallès, George Wither, Barnabe Googe

De Zuidafrikaanse schrijver Harold Athol Lannigan Fugard werd geboren op 11 juni 1932 in Middelburg, Kaapprovincie. Zie ook mijn blog van 11 juni 2007 en ook mijn blog van 11 juni 2008 en ook mijn blog van 11 juni 2009.

Uit: Tsotsi

„Tsotsi opened his eyes and listened to the knocking on his door.
Instinctively, but for no other reason than having awoken, he put his hand under his pillow to find his knife.
Before he found it, another thought crossed his mind and he sat up on his elbows and looked down at the foot of the bed. The baby was still there, and apparently asleep.
The knocking had stopped, but now came again. Tsotsi shook his head.
He must have fallen asleep; some time in the night his tiredness must have caught up with him and he had fallen asleep.
No, it was in the morning. He remembered going out once to piss and hearing cocks crowing and noticing that the sky was pale.
How long had he slept? He looked at the window and listened. Bright light and casual noise. Early morning.“

Fugard

Athol Fugard (Middelburg (ZA), 11 juni 1932)

 

De Japanse schrijver Yasunari Kawabata werd geboren op 11 juni 1899 in Osaka. Zie ook mijn blog van 11 juni 2007 en ook mijn blog van 11 juni 2009.

Uit: The dancing girl of Izu and other stories (Vertaald door J. Martin Holman)

Since I was a boy, I have had neither my own house nor home. During school vacations I stayed with relatives. I made the rounds of my many relatives from one house to another. However, I spent most of my school vacations at the homes of two of my closest relatives. The
se two houses were south and north of the Yodo River, one in a town in Kawachi Province and the other in a mountain village in Settsu Province. I traveled back and forth by ferry. At either house I was greeted not with “Thank you for coming” but with “Welcome home.”

During the summer holiday when I was twenty-two, I attended three funerals in the space of less than a month. Each time, I wore my late father’s silk gauze jacket, long divided skirts, and white socks, and I carried a Buddhist rosary. </p> <p> First there was a funeral in a branch of the Kawachi household. The mother of the family’s patriarch had died. She was quite old; they said she had grandchildren in their thirties and that she had been nursed through a long illness. You might say she had gone on to her reward without regrets. When I gazed at the patriarch’s despondent appearance and the granddaughters’ red eyes, I could see their grief. But my heart did not mourn directly for the late woman; I could not grieve her death. Although I burned incense before the altar, I did not know the face of the woman in the coffin. I had forgotten there even was such a person. </p> <p> Before the coffin was carried out, I made a condolence call in mourning clothes, rosary and fan in hand, with my elder cousin who had come from Settsu. Compared to my cousin’s behavior, what little I did, though I was young, appeared considerably more composed and appropriate for a funeral ceremony. I was comfortable performing my role. Surprised, my cousin studied my bearing and imitated me. Five or six cousins were gathered in the main house. They felt no need to make solemn faces. </p> <p> About a week later, I was in Kawachi when I received a telephone call from my elder cousin in Settsu. There was going to be a funeral in a branch of the family into which his elder sister had married.”

kawabata-japanesestamp

Yasunari Kawabata (11 juni 1899 — 16 april 1972)

 

De Franse schrijver Jules Vallès werd geboren op 11 juni 1832 in Puy-en-Velay, Haute-Loire. Zie ook mijn blog van 11 juni 2009.

Uit: Les Enfants du Peuple

“Nous parlerons de la prison et point du prisonnier, non d’un coupable, mais d’un supplice. Je connais Mazas. Il y a de cela pas mal d’années, nous fûmes, quelques amis et moi, arrêtés. Ce n’était la faute de personne. Un pauvre garçon nous avait dénoncés comme complices de je ne sais quelle conspiration, et l’on nous conduisit en prison. Renseignements pris, le juge d’instruction reconnut que notre accusateur n’était qu’un fou. Depuis le collège où nous avions été ses camarades et où nous nous mettions quelquefois à dix pour le maintenir dans ses accès, il était en proie à des attaques d’épilepsie et de délire ; lui-même avoua sa folie : on nous relâcha. Mais nous avions passé là quelques semaines, et entendant parler ces jours-ci prison et prisonnier, il m’est revenu à la mémoire quelques-unes des sensations que j’éprouvai dans la cellule et entre les murs des promenoirs…”

valles

Jules Vallès (11 juni 1832 – 14 februari 1885)

 

De Engelse dichter en satiricus George Wither werd geboren op 11 juni 1588 in Bentworth. Zie ook mijn blog van 11 juni 2007 en ook mijn blog van 11 juni 2009.

 A Sonnet Upon a Stolen Kiss 

Now gentle sleep hath clos’d up those eyes
Which waking kept my boldest thoughts in awe,
And free access unto that sweet lip lies,
From whence I long the rosy breath to draw;
Methinks no wrong it were if I should steal
From those two melting rubies one poor kiss;
None sees the theft that would the thief reveal,
Nor rob I her of aught which she can miss;
Nay, should I twenty kisses take away,
There would be little sign I had done so;
Why then should I this robbery delay?
Oh! she may wake and therewith angry grow.
Well, if she do, I’ll back restore that one,
And twenty hundred thousand more for loan.

George_Wither

George Wither (11 juni 1588 – 2 mei 1667)

 

De Engelse dichter en vertaler Barnabe Googe werd geboren op 11 juni 1540 in Londen of Kent. Zie ook mijn blog van 11 juni 2009.

Out Of Sight, Out Of Mind

The oftener seen, the more I lust,
The more I lust, the more I smart,
The more I smart, the more I trust,
The more I trust, the heavier heart;
The heavy hearty breeds mine unrest,
Thy absence, therefore, like I best.
The rarer seen, the lest in mind,
The less in mind, the lesser pain,
The lesser pain, less grief I find,
The lesser grief, the greater gain,
The greater gain, the merrier I,
The further off, the more I joy,
The more I joy, the happier life,
The happier life, less hurts annoy,
The lesser hurts, pleasure most rife:
Such pleasures rife shall I obtain
When distance doth depart us twain.

staple_inn
Barnabe Googe (11 juni 1540 – 1594)
Staple’s Inn, het oudste gebouw in Londen, geschilderd door Eric Bottomley
(Geen portret beschikbaar)

William Styron, Sophie van der Stap, Renée Vivien, Jean-Pierre Chabrol, Ben Jonson, Athol Fugard, Yasunari Kawabata, Jules Vallès, George Wither, Barnabe Googe, Eduard Escoffet

De Amerikaanse schrijver William Styron werd op 11 juni 1925 in Newport News in de staat Virginia geboren. Zie ook mijn blogs van 11 juni 2006, van 4 november 2006. en mijn blog van 11 juni 2007 en ook mijn blog van 11 juni 2008.

Uit: Darkness Visible

 

„I was feeling in my mind a sensation close to, but indescribably different from, actual pain. This leads me to touch again on the elusive nature of such distress. That the word “indescribable” should present itself is no fortuitous, since it has to be emphasized that if the pain were readily describable most of the countless sufferers from this ancient affliction would have been able to confidently depict for their friends and loved ones (even their physicians) some of the actual dimensions of their torment, and perhaps elicit a comprehension that has been generally lacking; such incomprehension has usually been due not to a failure of sympathy but to the basic inability of healthy people to imagine a form of torment so alien to everyday experience. For myself, the pain is most closely connected to drowning or suffocation—but even these images are off the mark. William James, who battled depression for many years, gave up the search for an adequate portrayal, implying it near-impossibility when he wrote in The Varieties of Religious Experience: “It is a positive and active anguish, a sort of psychical neuralgia wholly unknown to normal life.”

The pain persisted during my museum tour and reached crescendo in the next few hours when, back at the hotel, I fell onto the bed and lay gazing at the ceiling, nearly immobilized and in a trance of supreme discomfort. Rational thought was usually absent from my mind at such times, hence trance. I can think of no more apposite word for this state of being, a condition of helpless stupor in which cognition was replaced by that “positive and active anguish.” And one of the most unendurable aspects of such an interlude was the inability to sleep. It had been my custom of a near-lifetime, to settle myself into a soothing nap in the late afternoon, but the disruption of normal sleep patterns is a notoriously devastating feature of depression; to the injurious sleeplessness with which I had been afflicted each night was added the insult of this afternoon insomnia, diminutive by comparison but all the more horrendous because it struck during the hours of the most intense misery.“

 

 

styron

William Styron (11 juni 1925 – 1 november 2006)

 

De Nederlandse schrijfster Sophie van der Stap werd geboren in Amsterdam op 11 juni 1983.  Het Barlaeus Gymnasium en haar verre reizen brachten haar tot de studiekeuze politicologie, met als afstudeerrichting ontwikkelingssamenwerking. Deze weg werd abrupt onderbroken, toen ze in 2005 te horen kreeg dat ze kanker had. Ze hield al haar ervaringen met betrekking tot haar ziekte en het gevecht ertegen gedurende 54 weken bij in een weblog en een dagboek. Ze debuteerde in 2006 met haar roman “Meisje met negen pruiken”. Bij het verschijnen van de Duitse vertaling van haar debuutroman zond het Duitse televisiekanaal ZDF de uitgebreide reportage Das Mädchen mit den neun Perücken uit over Sophie in haar reeks 37°. In 2007 richtte Sophie samen met Walter Scheffrahn en Jurriaan van Dam de stichting Orange Ribbon International op. De liefdadigheidsinstelling heeft zich ten doel gesteld om wereldwijd alle vormen van kinderkanker te bestrijden. Sophie is de internationale ambassadeur van Orange Ribbon International. In april 2008 verscheen haar tweede roman “Een blauwe vlinder zegt gedag”. In juni 2009 presenteerde ze in het NKI-AVL het eerste luisterboek van “Meisje met negen pruiken”. Momenteel woont en werkt Sophie het merendeel van haar tijd in Parijs aan haar derde boek en is een verfilming van “Meisje met negen pruiken” in voorbereiding.

Uit: Meisje met negen pruiken

‘Tja, Lange Wapper kan een heleboel. Maar het beste is hij in stil zijn. “De stilte bewaren, zegt hij dan, is als het leven vasthouden.” Het leven dat jou en mij verbindt. Jou en mij, jij en ik, Lange Wapper en Sophie. Verbonden zijn we door een beetje vocht dat ons door een dun draadje verbindt. Samen luisteren we graag naar de muziek van dat draadje, de klank van al die luchtbelletjes en pompgeluidjes bij elkaar. Dan genieten wij van de stilte totdat Lange Wapper het gevaar hoort naderen en zijn piep weer laat horen. Want dan komen de zusters weer aansnellen en gaan de lichten weer aan. De stilte laat zijn plaats dan eensklaps veroveren door een schelle stem. De stem van mijn lange vriend, die eveneens eensklaps verandert in een felle strijder die zich met al zijn krachten ontfermt over mij. Maar gelukkig gaan de lichten altijd weer uit en worden we weer alleen gelaten met onze vredige stilte. Slechts onze stilte en een beetje vocht, dat ons met een dun draadje verbindt.’

(…)

 

‘Zoenen, knuffelen en vrijen. Passie en seks. Toch nog maar even langs bij mijn pruikenwonder om wat extra plakkertjes te kopen en zo mijn pruiken wat seksbestendiger te maken. Zonder pruik vrij ik niet, mijn haar ligt altijd op de rand van het bed. Ik vind het nog moeilijk me helemaal te laten gaan bij Rob, uit angst dat hij schrikt voor de bagage die ik mee naar bed neem. Ik leef zo in mijn eigen wereld. Misschien dat ik daarom ook wel zo aan mijn pruiken vasthoud, die kale kop is zo confronterend.’

 

VanDerStap

Sophie van der Stap (Amsterdam, 11 juni 1983)

 

De Britse dichteres en schrijfster Renée Vivien (eig. Pauline Mary Tarn) werd geboren op 11 juni 1877 in Londen. Zie ook mijn blog van 11 juni 2007 en ook mijn blog van 11 juni 2008.

 

Prolong the Night

 

Prolong the night, Goddess who sets us aflame!

Hold back from us the golden-sandalled dawn!

Already on the sea the first faint gleam

   Of day is coming on.

 

Sleeping under your veils, protect us yet,

Having forgotten the cruelty day may give!

The wine of darkness, wine of the stars let

   Overwhelm us with love!

 

Since no one knows what dawn will come,

Bearing the dismal future with its sorrows

In its hands, we tremble at full day, our dream

   Fears all tomorrows.

 

Oh! keeping our hands on our still-closed eyes,

Let us vainly recall the joys that take flight!

Goddess who delights in the ruin of the rose,

   Prolong the night!

 

 

Vivien

Renée Vivien (11 juni 1877 – 10 november 1909)

 

De Franse schrijver Jean-Pierre Chabrol werd geboren op 11 juni 1925 in Chamborigaud. Hij groeide op in het hart van de Cévennes en kreeg zijn opleiding in Alès. In 1944 sloot hij zich aan bij het Franse verzet. Hij werkte als journalist en tekenaar voor l’Humanité. Louis Aragon spoorde hem aan om zijn eerste roman te schrijven, La dernière cartouche. Hij raakte bevriend met mensen als Georges Brassens, Léo Ferré, Jacques Brel, Pierre Mac Orlan, werkte veel mee aan radio –en televisieprogrammá’s en maakte talrijke reizen.

 

Uit: Le crève Cévenne

 

„C’est long de mourir. C’est insupportable, une langueur ! Y aurait de quoi se flinguer un bon coup. Surtout quand il ne s’agit pas que de sa propre mort, quand se mourir soi-même ne suffit plus, quand il faut bien, se mourant, mourir aussi son pays. Crever sa mort dans la mort de sa terre. On ne peut que rester le soir au coin de sa cheminée, quand on en a encore une, à regarder flamber les dernières bougnes des derniers mûriers. Mais il y a pire, mais il est des soirs, des nuits, l’hiver surtout, par des temps à ne pas mettre un assureur dehors, où personne ne passe, où personne ne vient s’accroupir dans l’autre coin, outre-flammes. Alors on se résout à sortir, à chercher un toit, un autre feu, un autre coin, un autre agonisant, un mourant veinard qui voit, lui guilleret, quelqu’un venir mourir avec lui dans la crève du vieux pays.
Les feuilles mortes ont un tel poids qu’elles font crier le sol. À ne plus passer sous les arbres. Les voitures ont de bons freins. La rue-route du village, l’artère unique, est une immensité de frissonnantes grisailles. À cette heure,
en ce lieu, un cri d’enfant paraît déplacé, choquant même, c’est une atteinte aux bonnes mœurs.
Le vieux Socrate est couché, sans connaissance depuis quatre semaines. Son cousin Platon en est à sa troisième attaque, je l’entends gémir derrière les volets de la fenêtre à gauche de ce cadran solaire qui porte en exergue, sous les heures : « Chacune d’entre elles blesse, la dernière tue ».

 

chabrol

Jean-Pierre Chabrol (11 juni 1925 – 1 december 2001)

 

De Engelse dichter en schrijver  Ben Jonson werd geboren rond 11 juni 1572 in Westminster, Londen. Zie ook mijn blog van 11 juni 2006 en ook mijn blog van 11 juni 2007 en ook mijn blog van 11 juni 2008.

 

The Hour-Glass

 

O but consider this small dust, here running in the glass,

By atoms moved.

Could you believe that this the body was

Of one that loved?

 

And in his mistress’ flame playing like a fly,

Turned to cinders by her eye?

Yes, and in death as life unblest,

To have’t expressed,

Even ashes of lovers find no rest.

 

 

 

On My First Son

 

Farewell, thou child of my right hand, and joy,

My sin was too much hope of thee, loved boy;

Seven years th’ wert lent to me, and I thee pay,

Exacted by thy fate, on the just day.

O, I could lose all father now. For why

Will man lament the state he should envy?

To have so soon ‘scaped world’s and flesh’s rage,

And, if no other misery, yet age?

Rest in soft peace, and, asked, say here doth lie

Ben Jonson his best piece of poetry;

For whose sake, henceforth, all his vows be such

As what he loves may never like too much.

 

Ben_Jonson

Ben Jonson (ca. 11 juni 1572 – 6 augustus 1637)

 

De Zuidafrikaanse schrijver Harold Athol Lannigan Fugard werd geboren op 11 juni 1932 in Middelburg, Kaapprovincie. Zie ook mijn blog van 11 juni 2007 en ook mijn blog van 11 juni 2008.

 

Uit: On Tsotsi (Interview in The Morning After, 2006)

 

„I wrote Tsotsi at the same time that I was writing the first of my plays to really receive recognition within South Africa, and then ultimately outside of South Africa: The Blood Knot. It went to London where good old Ken Tynan killed it stone dead. It launched my career, really, [it was a] watershed play.

I felt I had arrived, then, at a kind of crossroads. I had to choose disciplines. Of course they’re such very, very different disciplines. To this day, I still don’t think that I really know how to write a novel. I really mean that. I know I took the plunge [at the] deep end with Tsotsi.

I think I just naturally gravitated — by virtue of my chemistry as a man, my metabolism as a writer — towards theatre. And that snuffed out the possibility of being a prose writer, a novelist. I don’t think I could do the two in tandem. I don’t know if you really can… Can you think of any successful novelist who is also a good playwright —

 

Fugard

Athol Fugard (Middelburg (ZA), 11 juni 1932)

 

De Japanse schrijver Yasunari Kawabata werd geboren op 11 juni 1899 in Osaka. Zie ook mijn blog van 11 juni 2007

Uit: First Snow on Fuji (Vertaald door Michael Emmerich)

Takako read “This Country, That Country” in the Sankei Daily Times a second and even a third time on the eve of Culture Day, which is to say on November second. The column printed curious and interesting articles about occurrences abroad, more like stories or seeds of stories than hard news.

The previous day’s edition had given rather extensive coverage to an announcement made by England’s Princess Margaret, in which she had said that she would not marry Group Captain Townshend after all. It was only natural that one of the stories in today’s “This Country, That Country” should concern the princess’s love affair:

One often comes across mounds of stones in the Scottish highlands. In the past, these mounds were erected in memory of heroes who fell in battle, but now it’s said that lovers who add stones to these mounds achieve “eternal love.” Four years ago, at a time when Princess Margaret and Group Captain Townshend were both staying in Balmoral, they placed a stone on a mound located in the middle of an overgrown field some three miles outside of town, swore their love for one another, and by this act leapt instantly into fame. The princess’s love affair has now ended.

There was a picture of the mound at the end of the article. Its size could be estimated from the size of the people who stood around it—the pile itself was almost as tall as a man, and the individual stones that formed it were a good deallarger than a person’s head. A few stones were as wide across as a person’s shoulders.

Of course it was impossible to tell which of the stones the princess and the group captain had placed on the pile, but none looked as though the princess could have lifted it alone. She and Group Captain Townshend must have lifted the stone together, and even so it must have been heavy.“

 

Kawabata

Yasunari Kawabata (11 juni 1899 — 16 april 1972)

 

De Franse schrijver Jules Vallès werd geboren op 11 juni 1832 in Puy-en-Velay, Haute-Loire. Vallès was een van de kopmannen van de Parijse Commune van 1871. Na de bloedige week wist hij te ontsnappen naar Engeland en kon pas in 1880 terugkeren. Als schrijver was hij vergeten totdat hij in Frankrijk zo’n 20 jaar geleden werd (her)ontdekt. Hij wordt nu als een van de grootste schrijvers uit de 19e eeuw gezien.  In zijn boeken beschrijft hij het leven in Frankrijk en Parijs voor en tijdens de Commune van Parijs. Hij was een strijdmakker van o.a. Paul Lafargue, de schoonzoon van Karl Marx en van Eugène Pottier, de dichter van de Internationale. Hij werkte onder andere mee aan de dagbladen ‘La Révolution française’ en ‘Cri du Peuple’, het eerste grote revolutionaire dagblad na de Commune.

 

Uit: L’Enfant

 

“Ai-je été nourri par ma mère?Est-ce une paysanne qui m’a donné son lait?Je n’en sais rien.Quel que soit le sein que j’ai mordu, je ne me rappelle pas une caresse du temps où j’étais tout petit; je n’ai pas été dorloté, tapoté, baisotté; j’ais été beaucoup fouetté.

  Ma mère dit qu’il ne faut pas gâter les enfants, et elle me fouette tous les matins; quand elle n’a pas le temps le matin, c’est pour midi, rarement plus tard que quatre heures.

  Mlle Balandreau m’y met au suif.

  C’est  une bonne vieille fille de cinquante ans. Elle demeure au-dessous de nous. D’abord elle était contante: comme elle n’a pas d’horloge, ça lui donnait l’heure.

“Vlin! Vlan! Zon! Zon!-voilà le petit Chose qu’on fouette; il est temps de faire mon café au lait.”

  Mais un jour que j’avais levé mon pan, parce que ça me cuisait trop,et que je prenais l’air entre deux portes, elle m’a vu; mon derrière lui a fait pitié.

  Elle voulait d’abord le monter a tout le monde, ameuter les voisins autour; mais elle a pensé que ce n’était pas le moyen de le sauver, et elle a inventé autre chose.

  Lorsqu’elle entend ma mère me dire: “Jacques, je vais te fouetter!

-Madame Vingtras, ne vous donnait pas la peine, je vais faire ça pour vous.

-Oh! chère demoiselle, vous êtes trop bonne!”

 

Jules_Vallès

Jules Vallès (11 juni 1832 – 14 februari 1885)
Portret door Gustave Courbet

 

 

De Engelse dichter en satiricus George Wither werd geboren op 11 juni 1588 in Bentworth. Zie ook mijn blog van 11 juni 2007

 

Veil, lord, mine eyes till she be past

  

Veil, Lord, mine eyes till she be past,

When Folly tempts my sight;

Keep Thou my palate and my taste

From gluttonous delight.

Stop Thou mine ear from sirens’ songs,

My tongue from lies restrain;

Withhold my hands from doing wrongs,

My feet from courses vain.

 

Teach, likewise, ev’ry other sense

To act an honest part,

But chiefly settle innocence

And pureness in my heart;

So naught without me or within,

Shall work an ill effect,

By tempting me to act a sin,

Or virtues to neglect.

 

Whither

George Wither (11 juni 1588 – 2 mei 1667)

 

De Engelse dichter en vertaler Barnabe Googe werd geboren op 11 juni 1540 in Londen of Kent. Hij studeerde aan het Christ’s College, Cambridge. Hij verhuisde daarna naar Staple’s Inn, waar ook zijn neef William Lovelace verbleef. Hij begon te dichten en ontmoette ook andere dichters en schrijvers als Jasper Heywood en George Turberville. Ook had hij nauwe contacten met het hof van koningin Elisabeth. Hij begeleidde Sir Thomas Challoner op een diplomatie missie naar Spanje.

 

Of Money

 

Give money me, take friendship whoso list,

For friends are gone, come once adversity,

When money yet remaineth safe in chest,

That quickly can thee bring from misery;

Fair face show friends when riches do abound;

Come time of proof, farewell, they must away;

Believe me well, they are not to be found

If God but send thee once a lowering day.

Gold never starts aside, but in distress,

Finds ways enough to ease thine heavin.

 

Googe_Londen

Barnabe Googe (11 juni 1540 – 1594)
Een bewaard gebleven 16e eeuws steegje in Londen, West End.
Ook de ramen links zijn 16e eeuws. (Geen portret beschikbaar)

 

 

Onafhankelijk van geboortedata:

 

De Catalaanse dichter, schrijver en vertaler Eduard Escoffet werd geboren in Barcelona in 1979. Het zwaartepunt ligt bij zijn gedichten op klankpoëzie en performance, Ook vertaalde hij werk van Goethe, Quasimodo en M. Lenz. Ook was hij initiatiefnemer tot het festival voor experimentele literatuur PROPOSTA. Zijn eigen werk verschijnt wel in allerlei tijdschriften en bloemlezingen, maar uit ecologische overwegingen heeft hij nog geen eigen bundel uitgegeven.

 

sie haben alle schulen geschlossen

 

sie haben alle schulen geschlossen. es wird dort nicht mehr lesen gelernt. es wird dort nicht mehr schreiben gelernt. wir haben alle wörter geschlossen. da die körper nicht mehr so lange halten, wie sie sollten – so wie die nacht und das blinde feuer der minnenden –, ist es besser, die wörter beiseite zu lassen. heute sorgen sich die mütter nicht mehr um die kinder und die schule und die stunden. heute kümmern sich die mütter, weit entfernt von der väterwärme, nur noch um die uniformen. und die söhne werkeln oder verformen ihre körper. sie haben alle kleidungsstücke verfleckt. trotzdem: sie können nicht mehr schreiben, und lesen können sie auch nicht mehr. und die nacht, schwach und kurz, nimmt zwei körper auf, die sich verformen. wie die wörter, aber ohne wörter.

 

 

Vertaald door Àxel Sanjosé

 

escoffet

Eduard Escoffet (Barcelona, 1979)

 

 

 

 

 

 

William Styron, Renée Vivien, Athol Fugard, Ben Jonson, Yasunari Kawabata, George Wither

De Amerikaanse schrijver William Styron werd op 11 juni 1925 in Newport News in de staat Virginia geboren. Zie ook mijn blogs van 11 juni 2006, van 4 november 2006. en mijn blog van 11 juni 2007.

 

Uit: The Paris Review, interview (1954)

 

 

INTERVIEWER

 

Does your emotional state have any bearing on your work?

 

STYRON

 

I guess like everybody I’m emotionally fouled up most of the

time, but I find I do better when I’m relatively placid. It’s hard to

say, though. If writers had to wait until their precious psyches were

completely serene there wouldn’t be much writing done.

Actually—though I don’t take advantage of the fact as much as

I should—I find that I’m simply the happiest, the placidest, when

I’m writing, and so I suppose that that, for me, is the final answer.

When I’m writing I find it’s the only time that I feel completely

self-possessed, even when the writing itself is not going too well.

It’s fine therapy for people who are perpetually scared of nameless

threats as I am most of the time—for jittery people. Besides, I’ve

discovered that when I’m not writing I’m prone to developing

certain nervous tics, and hypochondria. Writing alleviates those

quite a bit. I think I resist change more than most people. I dislike

traveling, like to stay settled. When I first came to Paris all I could

think about was going home, home to the old James River. One of

these days I expect to inherit a peanut farm. Go back home and

farm them old peanuts and be real old Southern whiskey gentry.

 

INTERVIEWER

 

Your novel was linked to the Southern school of fiction.

Do you think the critics were justified in doing this?

 

STYRON

 

No, frankly, I don’t consider myself in the Southern school,

whatever that is. Lie Down in Darkness, or most of it, was set in

the South, but I don’t care if I never write about the South again,

really. Only certain things in the book are particularly Southern.

I used leitmotifs—the negroes, for example—that run throughout

the book, but I would like to believe that my people would have

behaved the way they did anywhere. The girl, Peyton, for instance,

didn’t have to come from Virginia. She would have wound up

jumping from a window no matter where she came from. Critics

are always linking writers to “schools.” If they couldn’t link

people to schools, they’d die. When what they condescendingly

call “a genuinely fresh talent” arrives on the scene, the critics

rarely try to point out what makes him fresh or genuine but

concentrate instead on how he behaves in accordance with their

preconceived notion of what school he belongs to.

 

 

Styron

William Styron (11 juni 1925 – 1 november 2006)
Foto uit 1952

 

 

 

De Britse dichteres en schrijfster Renée Vivien (eig. Pauline Mary Tarn) werd geboren op 11 juni 1877 in Londen. Zie ook mijn blog van 11 juni 2007

 

Roses Rising

 

My brunette with the golden eyes, your ivory body, your amber
Has left bright reflections in the room
Above the garden.

The clear midnight sky, under my closed lids,
Still shines….I am drunk from so many roses
Redder than wine.

Leaving their
garden, the roses have followed me….
I drink their brief breath, I breathe their life.
All of them are here.

It’s a miracle….The stars have risen,
Hastily, across the wide windows
Where the melted gold pours.

Now, among the roses and the stars,
You, here in my room, loosening your robe,
And your nakedness glistens

Your unspeakable gaze rests on my eyes….
Without stars and without flowers, I dream the impossible
In the cold night.

 

Undine

 

Your laughter is light, your caress deep,
Your cold kisses love the harm they do;
Your eyes-blue lotus waves
And the water lilies are less pure than your face..

You flee, a fluid parting,
Your hair falls in gentle tangles;
Your voice-a treacherous tide;
Your arms-supple reeds.

Long river reeds, their embrace
Enlaces, chokes, strangles savagely,
Deep in the waves, an agony
Extinguished in a night drift.

 

 

 

Vertaald door Margaret Porter and Catherine Kroger

 

 

VivienDoorRodin

Renée Vivien (11 juni 1877 – 10 november 1909)
Beeld door Auguste Rodin

 

 

 

De Zuidafrikaanse schrijver Harold Athol Lannigan Fugard werd geboren op 11 juni 1932 in Middelburg, Kaapprovincie. Zie ook mijn blog van 11 juni 2007.

 

Uit: Encounters with Fugard: native of the Karoo (artikel in ‘Twentieth Century Literature’ door Mary Benson)

 

His sense of rootedness became a recurring theme. “I know that I have mastered the code of one time, one place,” he confided in another letter. “My life’s work is possibly to witness as truthfully as I can the nameless and destitute of this one little corner of the world.” And so he wrote about Johnnie and Hester Smit living in a back street of Port Elizabeth and in the first production of Hello and Goodbye, directed by Barney Simon at the Library Theatre in Johannesburg, gave a poignant and wonderfully comic performance as Johnnie. Next he created Boesman and Lena, the “coloured” couple scratching for bait in the mudflats, and embraced them “so fiercely and lovingly,” as Stanley Kauffmann wrote in The New Republic, “that in their rags and drunkenness and cunning and persistence they move through a small epic of contemporary man” .

Deprived of his passport for four years by the South African government, Fugard was not free until 1971 to journey to London for a production of Boesman and Lena. He arrived exhausted after touring the play in South Africa. Paul Klee’s Pedagogical Sketchbook stimulated him with its theme of the flight of an arrow and the question, “How do I expand my reach?” (Klee 54). Here is restriction, thither is there and liberation, Klee was saying. The consolation, then, is to go a bit farther than customary. “Yes!” Athol exclaimed, when I gave him Klee’s book and he glanced through it, “I must extend my reach with this new production!”

 

fugard

Athol Fugard (Middelburg (ZA), 11 juni 1932)

 

De Engelse dichter en schrijver  Ben Jonson werd geboren rond 11 juni 1572 in Westminster, Londen. Zie ook mijn blog van 11 juni 2006 en ook mijn blog van 11 juni 2007

 

 

To John Donne

 

DONNE, the delight of Phoebus, and each Muse,

Who, to thy one, all other braines refuse ;

Whose every work, of thy most early wit,

Came forth example, and remaines so, yet ;

Longer a knowing, than most wits do live ;

And which no affection praise enough can give !

To it, thy language, letters, arts, best life,

Which might with halfe mankinde maintaine a strife ;

All which I meant to praise, and, yet, I would ;

But leave, because I cannot as I should !

 

 

 

WHY I WRITE NOT OF LOVE

 

SOME act of LOVE’S bound to rehearse,

I thought to bind him in my verse :

Which when he felt, Away, quoth he,

Can poets hope to fetter me ?

It is enough, they once did get

Mars and my mother, in their net :

I wear not these my wings in vain.

With which he fled me ; and again,

Into my rhymes could ne’er be got

By any art : then wonder not, 

That since, my numbers are so cold,

When Love is fled, and I grow cold.

 

 

 

OF LIFE AND DEATH

 

The ports of death are sins ; of life, good deeds ;

Through which our merit leads us to our meeds.

How wilful blind is he, then, that would stray,

And hath it, in his powers, to make his way !

This world death’s region is, the other life’s ;

And here, it should be one of our first strifes,

So to front death, as men might judge us past it :

For good men but see death, the wicked taste it.

 

 

Jonson_L

Ben Jonson (ca. 11 juni 1572 – 6 augustus 1637)

 

Zie voor onderstaande schrijver ook mijn blog van 11 juni 2007

 

De Japanse schrijver Yasunari Kawabata werd geboren op 11 juni 1899 in Osaka.

 

De Engelse dichter en satiricus George Wither werd geboren op 11 juni 1588 in Bentworth.