Wednesday, June 30, 2021

Beers & Books CV – Assija Djebar

Les Nuits de Strasbourg, 1997
*
"My father was a nobleman
when he spoke his mother tongue,
and a worker from the lowest class
when he went over into French."

**
“Writing in a foreign language
has brought me to the cries of the women
silently rebelling in my youth,
to my own true origins.”

Assija Djebar (30 June 1936 – 6 February 2015)

Thursday, June 24, 2021

Beers & Books CII – Ernesto Sabato

Just as the office worker dreams
of murdering his hated boss
and so is saved from really murdering him,
so it is with the author;
with his great dreams
he helps his readers to survive,
to avoid their worst intentions.
And society, without realizing it
respects and even exalts him,
albeit with a kind of jealousy,
fear and even repulsion,
since few people want to discover the horrors
that lurk in the depths of their souls.
This is the highest mission of great literature,
and there is no other.

Ernesto Sabato (* 24 Juni 1911 - 30 April 2011)

Sunday, June 20, 2021

Beers & Books XCVII– Zülfü Livaneli

At dusk a man came to a village and said
he was a prophet. But the farmers did not
believe him. "Prove it!" they demanded.
The man pointed to the fortress wall opposite
and asked, "If this wall speaks and confirms
that I am a prophet, will you believe me?"
"By God, then we believe you," they shouted.
The man turned to the wall, stretched out his hand
and commanded, "Speak, O wall!"
Then the wall began to speak:
"This man is not a prophet. He is deceiving you.
He is not a prophet."*

Zülfü Livaneli * 20 June 1946

Just for interest translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version). Does any native speaker find any mistake(s)?

Friday, June 18, 2021

Beers & Books XCVI – Varlam Shalamov

“I discovered
that the world should be divided
not into good and bad people
but into cowards and non-cowards.
Ninety-five percent of cowards are capable
of the vilest things, lethal things,
at the mildest threat.”


Varlam Shalamov (18 June 1907 – 17 January 1982)
 

Wednesday, June 16, 2021

Beers & Books XCIV – Liao Yiwu

Where did you get the meat from?
Mo Erwa answered calmly:
We just boiled our three-year-old daughter.
The Corpse Walker:
Real Life Stories: China from the Bottom Up


Liao Yiwu * 16 June 1958