De Uruguayaanse schrijver, essayist en journalist Eduardo Hughes Galeano werd geboren op 3 september 1940 in Montevideo. Zie ook alle tags voor Eduardo Galeano op dit blog.

Uit: Voices Of Time (Vertaald door Mark Fried)

Time Tells

We are made of time.
We are its feet and its voice.
The feet of time walk in our shoes.
Sooner or later, we all know, the winds of time will erase the tracks.
Passage of nothing, steps of no one? The voices of time tell of the voyage.

 

The Voyage

Oriol Vall, who works with newborns at a hospital in Barcelona, says that the first human gesture is the embrace. After coming into the world, at the beginning of their days, babies wave their arms as if seeking someone.
Other doctors, who work with people who have already lived their lives, say that the aged, at the end of their days, die trying to raise their arms.
And that’s it, that’s all, no matter how hard we strive or how many words we pile on. Everything comes down to this: between two flutterings, with no more explanation, the voyage occurs.

 

Footprints

A couple was walking across the savannah in East Africa at the beginning of the rainy season. The woman and the man still looked a lot like apes, truth be told, although they were standing upright and had no tails.
A nearby volcano, now called Sadiman, was belching ash. The rain of ash preserved the couple’s footprints, from that moment through time. Beneath their gray blanket, the tracks remained intact. Those footprints show that this Eve and that Adam had been walking side by side; at a certain point she stopped, turned away, and took a few steps on her own. Then she returned to the path they shared.
The world’s oldest human footprints left traces of doubt. A few years have gone by. The doubt remains.”

 

Lees verder “Eduardo Galeano, Alison Lurie, Sergej Dovlatov, Kiran Desai, Lino Wirag” →

De Indische schrijfster Kiran Desai werd geboren op 3 september 1971 in New Dehli. Zie ook mijn blog van 3 september 2010 en eveneens alle tags voor Kiran Desai op dit blog.

 

Uit: The Inheritance of Loss

“She shut the magazine and walked out into the garden. The forest was old and thick at the edge of the lawn; the bamboo thickets rose thirty feet into the gloom; the trees were moss-slung giants, bunioned and misshapen, tentacled with the roots of orchids. The caress of the mist through her hair seemed human, and when she held her fingers out, the vapor took them gently into its mouth. She thought of Gyan, the mathematics tutor, who should have arrived an hour ago with his algebra book.
But it was 4:30 already and she excused him with the thickening mist.
When she looked back, the house was gone; when she climbed the steps back to the veranda, the garden vanished. The judge had fallen asleep and gravity acting upon the slack muscles, pulling on the line of his mouth, dragging on his cheeks, showed Sai exactly what he would look like if he were dead.
“Where is the tea?” he woke and demanded of her. “He’s late,” said the judge, meaning the cook with the tea, not Gyan.
“I’ll get it,” she offered.
The gray had permeated inside, as well, settling on the silverware, nosing the corners, turning the mirror in the passageway to cloud. Sai, walking to the kitchen, caught a glimpse of herself being smothered and reached forward to imprint her lips upon the surface, a perfectly formed film star kiss. “Hello,” she said, half to herself and half to someone else.
No human had ever seen an adult giant squid alive, and though they had eyes as big as apples to scope the dark of the ocean, theirs was a solitude so profound they might never encounter another of their tribe. The melancholy of this situation washed over Sai.
Could fulfillment ever be felt as deeply as loss? Romantically she decided that love must surely reside in the gap between desire and fulfillment, in the lack, not the contentment. Love was the ache, the anticipation, the retreat, everything around it but the emotion itself.”

 

Kiran Desai (New Dehli, 3 september 1971)

Lees verder “Kiran Desai, Eduardo Galeano, Alison Lurie, Sergej Dovlatov, Lino Wirag” →

De Indische schrijfster Kiran Desai werd geboren op 3 september 1971 in New Dehli. Zie ook mijn blog van 3 september 2008 en ook mijn blog van 3 september 2009 en ook mijn blog van 3 september 2010.

 

Uit: Hullabaloo In The Guava Orchard

„It was this year that Sampath Chawla was born to his mother, Kulfi. She was twenty-one years old, newly married to Mr. Chawla, and pregnant. By late September the heat and lack of rain had combined to produce terrible conditions of drought. She grew bigger as it got worse. It got to be so bad that famine-relief camps were set up by the Red Cross to the west of Shahkot. The supply planes flew right over the bazaar and Shahkotians, watchi

ng with their heads tilted back, wondered why they didn’t stop for them as well, for surely they were suffering quite enough to warrant the same attention and care being so assiduously delivered elsewhere. The ration shop was distributing rice and lentils in smaller and smaller portions all the time. There was no fruit to be found anywhere and hardly any vegetables. Prices had risen so high, nobody would buy the scraggy chickens sitting in cages outside the meat shop. Finally the poor butcher had to eat them himself, and after the last one, he was forced to turn vegetarian like the rest of the town.
Kulfi, in these months, was so enormously large, she seemed to be claiming all the earth’s energy for herself, sapping it dry, leaving it withered, shriveled and yellow.
People stopped short in amazement as she walked down the street. How big she was! They forgot their dealings in the almost empty marketplace. They teetered on their bicycles as they looked around for just another sight of that stomach extending improbably before her like a huge growth upon a slender tree. Her eyes were so dark, so sooty and vehement, though, these people who turned their heads to stare turned quickly away again, ill at ease for some reason and unsettled. Not noticing them, she passed by as if they weren’t there at all. On her face, about her mouth and in the set of her chin was an expression intent and determined but yet far away and distant, as if all her thoughts were concentrated upon a point invisible to everybody but herself. She walked through Shahkot like this, as distracted as this, as strange as this.
‘What do you expect?’ asked Ammaji, her mother-in-law, making excuses when curious neighbors asked about Kulfi’s state of mind. ‘What do you expect from a woman with a baby in her belly like a little fish?’

 

Kiran Desai (New Dehli, 3 september 1971)

Lees verder “Kiran Desai, Eduardo Galeano, Alison Lurie, Sergej Dovlatov, Lino Wirag” →

De Indische schrijfster Kiran Desai werd geboren op 3 september 1971 in New Dehli.

Uit: Hullabaloo In The Guava Orchard

 

„That summer the heat had enveloped the whole of Shahkot in a murky yellow haze. The clutter of rooftops and washing lines that usually stretched all the way to the foothills at the horizon grew blurred and merged with the dust-filled sky.

‘Problems have been located in the cumulus that have become overly heated,’ read Mr. Chawla from the newspaper. ‘It is all a result of volcanic ash thrown up in the latest spurt of activity in Tierra del Fuego.’

And a little later he reported to whomever might be listening: ‘The problem lies in the currents off the West African coastline and the unexplained molecular movement observed in the polar ice-caps.’

And: ‘Irag attempts to steal monsoon by deliberately creating low pressure over desert provinces and deflecting winds from India.’

And even: ‘Hungarian musician offers to draw rain clouds from Europe to India via the music of his flute.’

‘Why can’t they think of serious solutions?’ asked Mr. Chawla. ‘It is too hot to fool about with Hungarian musicians.’

Shahkot boasted some of the highest temperatures in the country and here there were dozens of monsoon-inducing proposals. Mr. Chawla himself submitted a proposal to the forestry department for the cutting and growing of vegetation in elaborate patterns; the army proposed the scattering and driving of clouds by jet planes flying in a special geometric formation; the police a frog wedding to be performed by temple priests.

Vermaji of the university invented a giant fan which he hoped would attract the southern monsoon clouds by creating a wind tunnel moving north toward the Himalayas, and he petitioned the Electricity Supply Board for enough power to test it. Amateur scientists from Mr. Barnala of Tailor Gully to Miss Raina from Sainik Farms area attended trade fairs where they displayed instruments that emitted magnetic rays and loud buzzing sounds. Everyone in the town was worried. The mercury in the police station thermometer exceeded the gradations Kapoor & Sons Happy Weather Company had seen fit to establish, leaping beyond memory and imagination, and outdoing the predictions of even Mr Chawla’s mother, Ammaji, who liked to think she knew exactly what the future would bring.

It was a summer that sent the dizzy pulse of fever into the sky, in which even rules and laws that usually stood straight and purposeful grew limp, like plants exposed to the afternoon sun, and weak. The heat softened and spread the roads into sticky pools of pitch and melted the grease in the Brigadier’s mustache so that it drooped and uncurled, casting shadows on his fine, crisp presence.

 

Kiran Desai (New Dehli, 3 september 1971)

 

De Uruguayaanse schrijver, essayist en journalist Eduardo Hughes Galeano werd geboren op 3 september 1940 in Montevideo. Zie ook alle tags voor Eduardo Galeano op dit blog.

 Uit: Mirrors

 

„MEXICANS

 

Tlazoltéotl, Mexico’s moon, goddess of the Huasteca night, managed to elbow her way into the macho pantheon of the Aztecs.

She was the most mothering of mothers, who protected women in labor and their midwives, and guided seeds on their voyage to becoming plants. Goddess of love and also of garbage, condemned to eat shit, she embodied fertility and lust.

Like Eve, like Pandora, Tlazoltéotl bore the guilt for men’s perdition; women born in her times lived condemned to pleasure.

And when the earth trembled, in soft vibrations or devastating earthquakes, no one doubted: “It is she.”

 

***

 

DJANGO

 

Born in a gypsy caravan, he spent his early years on the road in Belgium, playing the banjo for a dancing bear and a goat.

He was eighteen when his wagon caught fire and he was left for dead. He lost a leg, a hand. Goodbye road, goodbye music.

But when they were about to amputate, he regained the use of his leg. And from his lost hand he managed to save two fingers and become one of the best jazz guitarists in history.

There was a secret pact between Django Reinhardt and his guitar. If he would play her, she would lend him the fingers he was missing.“

 

Eduardo Galeano (Montevideo, 3 september 1940)

 

Zie voor de twee bovenstaande schrijvers ook ook mijn blog van 3 september 2008.

 

De Amerikaanse schrijfster en literatuurwetenschapster Alison Lurie werd geboren op 3 september 1926 in Chicago, Illinois. Zie ook mijn blog van 3 september 2007 en ook mijn blog van 3 september 2008.

 

Uit: Familiar Spirits

 

„When James Merrill and I first met we didn’t take to each other. If someone had told me that day that we would be friends for forty years, I would have thought they were joking.
It was the hot summer of 1950; I and my first husband, Jonathan Bishop, were in Europe on a postponed honeymoon. We had come to Austria to stay with Lynn and Ted Hoffman, who were working at the Salzburg Seminar. An acquaintance from Harvard, Claude Fredericks, was in town, too, and they arranged for all of us to have lunch and go for a swim in a nearby lake. Both Lynn and I were fond of Claude, and hoped to find the friend he was traveling with, another young poet, equally likable.
But Jimmy Merrill was a disappointment. Compared to Claude he seemed both coolly detached and awkwardly self-conscious. He was thin and pale and shortsighted, with thick black-rimmed spectacles (later he would wear contact lenses). Though only twenty-four, he was clearly already an intellectual and an aesthete. He appeared to have read everything and, worse, to be surprised at our ignorance.
The lake turned out to be a large light-struck shiny pond, mainly surrounded by woods. Fallen tree trunks littered the steep, sandy margin, and more floated offshore. The water was a clear, dark brown, and very deep; a top layer had been warmed by the sun, but below it was icy, and choked with the rubbery yellow and green straps of water weeds.
Most of us splashed about briefly and then waded out, but Jimmy stayed longer; and in spite of his weedy appearance he turned out to be a skilled swimmer. Unlike professional athletes, who often seem to be fighting the water, attacking it with violent slapping assaults and throwing off sprays of liquid shrapnel, Jimmy hardly broke the surface as he swam. The dark wet element parted smoothly for him as it might have for some long, elegant pale fish. When he finally waded out, however, he again seemed chilly and ill at ease.
As his memoir of those years declares in its title, Jimmy was A Different Person then, in both senses of the phrase. He was different from most other persons, and he was different from the person he would become. Most of us change as we age, but Jimmy changed more than most. He not only became more confident and better-looking—eventually elegantly handsome—he also became kinder, more generous, and more sympathetic. He never quite became an ordinary person, but his instinctive scorn of fools, once only half-concealed by good manners, relaxed and gave way to a detached, affectionate amusement, such as a highly civilized visitor from another planet might feel. Perhaps that is why he eventually seemed so much at home with the otherworldly beings he and David Jackson contacted through the Ouija board.”

 

Alison Lurie (Chigaco, 3 september 1926)

 

De Russische schrijver Sergej Dovlatov werd geboren op 3 september 1941 in Ufa, in het zuiden van Rusland. Zie ook mijn blog van 3 september 2007 en ook mijn blog van 3 september 2008.

 

Uit: Kurz ist das Leben (Vertaald door Eric Boemer)

 

„Levickij öffnete die Augen und versuchte sich sofort wieder an eine Metapher zu erinnern, die er gestern vergessen hatte … »Des Vollmonds Pfefferminztablette …«? »Die krumme Banane des Halbmonds …«? Irgendwas in dieser Art, wenn auch bedeutender im Geist.

Die Metaphern kamen nachts, wenn er schon im Bett lag. Der Maestro bummelte mit den Notizen. Früher konnte er sie bis zum Morgen im Gedächtnis halten. Heute war es zur Regel geworden, dass er sie, nicht ohne ein Gefühl der Befriedigung, wieder vergaß. Die vergebene Chance eines kleinen sprachlichen Abenteuers.

Levickij richtete seinen Blick auf ein weißes, der Farbe einer Ambulanz nachgestaltetes Tischchen. Er bemerkte die gewaltige, mit dorischen Figurationen geschmückte Torte. Er begann, die dünnen, gewundenen Kerzen zu zählen.

Mein Gott, dachte Levickij, noch ein Geburtstag.

Diese Phrase war es wert, sie für die Reporter aufzusparen:

»Mein Gott! Noch ein Geburtstag! Was für eine angenehme Überraschung

– siebzig Jahre!«

Er stellte sich die Schlagzeilen vor:

»Russischer Schriftsteller feiert seinen Siebzigsten in der Fremde«. »Die Bücher des Jubilars erscheinen überall, mit Ausnahme von Moskau«. Und schließlich: »O mein Gott, ein weiterer Geburtstag!« …

Levickij duschte, zog sich an. Griff nach der Post. Die Gattin war offensichtlich in Sachen Geschenke unterwegs. Gerlinda – ein Geschöpf zwischen Verwandter und Dienstbotin – umarmte ihn. Der Maestro unterbrach sie mit den Worten:

»Du bist im Testament berücksichtigt.«

Das war ein alter Scherz zwischen ihnen.

Sie fragte:

»Tee oder Kaffee?«

»Kaffee bitte.«

»Welchen möchten sie?«

»Den braunen, wahrscheinlich.«

Dann hörte er:

»Sie werden von einer Dame erwartet.«

Schnell fragte er:

»Aber nicht die mit dem Zopf?«

»Sie hat irgendeine Rarität mitgebracht. Ich glaube – ein Buch. Sie sagte – eine Inkunabel.«

Levickij zitierte lächelnd:

»De ses mains tombe le livre,

Dans leguel elle n’avait rien lu.

(Aus ihrer Hand fiel ein ungelesenes Buch …)«

Regina Gasparjan saß seit mehr als einer Stunde in der Halle. Zum Ausgleich reichte man ihr Kaffee mit Brötchen. Nichtsdestoweniger war das ziemlich erniedrigend. Man hätte sie in den Salon bitten können. Ihre Ehrfurcht mischte sich mit beleidigtem Unbehagen.“

 

Sergej Dovlatov (3 september 1941 – 24 augustus 1990)

 

Onafhankelijk van geboortedata:

 

De Duitse dichter, schrijver en striptekenaar Lino Wirag werd geboren in 1983 in Pforzheim. Wirag studeerde literatuurwetenschappen en kunstgeschiedenis in Freiburg, creatief schrijven en cultuurjournalistiek in Hildesheim en kunst in het Finse Uusikaarlepyy. Hij publiceerde in tijdschrijften, magazines en kranten. In 2005 ontwikkelde hij het format „Live.Poetry“. Bij deze combinatie van Poetry Slam en theatersport laten schrijvers in interactie met het publiek teksten ontstaan.

 

 

Vereinstreffen

 

Heute traf sich in der Kneipe

Unser Murmeltier-Verein

Durch die schmutzbedeckte Scheibe

Sah man Murmeltiere schrein

»Gebt das Land den Murmeltieren!«

»Murmeltiere einig Reich!«

»Nie mehr sollen Murmeln frieren,

Macht den Murmeln, und das gleich!«

Lange konnte man sie hören,

Wie sie Murmelverse schrien

Und dabei den Staat der gröbsten

Murmelrechtsverletzung ziehn

Gegen fünf Uhr in der Frühe

Legte dann ihr Eifer sich.

Bis das ganze Murmelschreien

Nur noch einem Murmeln glich.

 

Lino Wirag (Pforzheim, 1983)