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De Nederlandse schrijver Herman Franke werd geboren op 13 oktober 1948 in Groningen. Zie ook mijn blog van 13 oktober 2006 en ook mijn blog van 13 oktober 2007.
Uit: Zoek op liefde
Er zit een enorme mol in de tuin, zei zijn zusje die avond. Maar niemand luisterde naar haar want de kamer zat vol met ooms, tantes, buren en politiemensen die zich keer op keer in steeds weer andere bewoordingen afvroegen waar de jongen gebleven kon zijn.
Het heeft vast met die vlekken te maken, snikte zijn moeder maar zijn vader meende stellig dat je van de zenuwen niet vermist kon raken.
Dan is het eind zoek, zei hij. Niemand vroeg hem wat hij daar mee bedoelde.
Pas de volgende dag onderzocht een politieman de grote molshoop in de tuin. Hij ontdekte een diepe gang waar met gemak de speurhond doorheen kon die hij eerst aan oude kleren van de jongen had laten ruiken. Na enkele minuten kwam deze hond boven met een onderarm die aan de ene kant zo puntig was als een pijl en die aan de andere kant de vorm had van een graafschepje. Even later legde de hond nog zon onderarm neer voor de voeten van de wit weggetrokken politieman. Onderzoek zou uitwijzen dat het inderdaad de onderarmen waren van de verdwenen jongen. Maar hoe goed men die dag en de dagen daarna ook zocht, meer lichaamsdelen werden niet gevonden. Op het houten kruis dat zijn vader en moeder op de plek van de lugubere vondst plaatsten, verschenen precies een jaar na zijn verdwijning bloedrode vlekken die wegtrokken zodra de zon onderging. Buurtgenoten zagen er een wonder van God in, een waarschuwing aan de zondige wereld, en ze vertelden het door. Al gauw kwamen er dagelijks tientallen mensen die voor het kruis op hun knieën zonken en hun zonden beleden of voor de gezondheid van zichzelf en hun geliefden baden
. dus toen ik in die bokstent om me heen dood, dood, dood hoorde roepen, liet ook ik me voor het kruis op de grond vallen en vroeg aan God mijn vader te sparen. Ik beloofde nooit in mijn leven geweld te zullen gebruiken als Hij ervoor zou zorgen dat mijn vader straks heelhuids de bokstent kon verlaten.
Herman Franke (Groningen, 13 oktober 1946)
De Albanese dichter Migjeni (eigen. Millosh Gjergj Nikolla) werd geboren op 13 oktober 1911 in Shkodra. Na de servisch talige basisschool in zijn geboorteplaats bezocht hij het Sveti Jovan seminarie in Bitola (Toen Joegoslavië, nu Macedonië). Daar leerde hij o.a. Frans, Russisch, Grieks en Latijn. Toen hij was teruggekeerd naar Albanië gaf hij zijn plan om priester te worden op en werd leraar. Hij begon toen ook gedichten en proza in de Albanese taal te schrijven. Migjeni kreeg tbc en zoch tevergeefs genezing in Torre Pellice in Noord-Italië. Toen hij stierf was hij pas 26 jaar. Tijdens zijn leven werd een gedichtenbundel Vargjet e Lira (Vrije Verzen) gedrukt in Tirana, maar even later ook weer door de autoriteiten verboden. Ondanks zijn kleine oeuvre wordt hij in Albanië nog steeds gewaardeerd.
Song of Youth
Sing, youth, the loveliest song you know!
Sing the song that seethes within your breast,
Let your joy burst forth in passion...
Don't hold back your song! Let it soar.
Sing your song, youth. I beg you sing...
Let it seize you, kiss you, inspire you to love
With youthful ardour... Let the foaming wave of feelings
Which your song arouses surge over us.
Sing your song, youth, and laugh like children!
Let the sound of your voice rise to the heavens
And echo back to us again, from the envious stars.
For we adore you, as we adore the sun.
Sing, youth! Sing your joyful song!
Laugh, youth, laugh! The world is yours.
Broken Melody
Broken melody -- tear sparkling in the eye
Of a woman loved...
Please past,
Jewel lost,
A trampled dream
Lips unkissed
In the broken melody.
With silent sobs the naked shoulders shake,
Their whiteness dazzling...
Stabbed, stabbed with remorse
For the moments of mindlessness,
For her ruined fate,
For the happiness lost
In the broken melody.
Face hidden in her hands in shame,
Remorsefully the woman weeps,
With heart despairing
(A broken guitar,
A voice stifled
On lips kissed by pain
In the broken melody).
Silent he stands beside the woman weeping
Scolding tears of shame
That dim her eyes.
Some money on the table quickly lays
And goes away,
Leaving the woman lost
In the broken melody.
But when another comes, lust mounts again,
The heated blood
Pounds furiously through the veins,
Benumbing mind
... and only gasps
And grants are heard
In the horrid melody.
Vertaald door Robert Elsie
Migjeni (13 oktober 1911 26 augustus 1938)
De Jamaicaanse schrijver Colin Channer werd geboren op 13 oktober 1963 in Kingston. Hij begon op zijn middelbare school met het schrijven van liefdesgedichten en brieven die hij voor een dollar per stuk verkocht aan zijn mannelijke medeleerlingen. De gedichten kostten trouwens vijftig cent meer. In 1982 verhuisde hij naar New York om journalist te worden. Hij haalde een B.A. in Media Communications aan CUNY Hunter College. Na drie jaar in Atlanta gewerkt te hebben kwam hij in 1991 terug in New York en begon hij zijn eerste roman te schrijven. Ook schreef hij korte verhalen en een elevisiespel, zonder de garantie dat iets ervan gepubliceerd zou worden. De roman verscheen uiteindelijk in 1998 als Waiting In Vain en werd uitverkoren als de Critics Choice door The Washington Post. Een van zijn korte verhalen groeide uit tot zijn tweede roman Satisfy My Soul uit 2002. In 2004 verscheen de verhalenbundel Passing Through.
Uit: Waiting in Vain
On the day he met Sylvia, Fire woke up in Blanche's arms with a numbness in his soul. It was his ninetieth day of celibacy, and the night before had almost been his last, for Blanche had tied his wrists in his sleep and mounted him.
He wanted to talk to her but didn't know how. Couldn't decide how to do it without losing his temper or his pride. He searched the room for answers--the arched windows . . . the rattan chairs . . . the hardwood floors with the swirling grain . . .
The mattress stirred. He heard the strike of her match. Felt the heat. And the tidal pull of her lips. She was naked, and the urgency of smoking did not disturb her breasts, hard and still like turtles.
A lizard crawled from the windowsill to the peak of the angled ceiling and slid down the pole of the old brass fan whose blades were sheathed in straw. It flicked its tongue and wagged its head, shook loose a fold of skin and puffed a red balloon.
Fire watched it closely, enchanted by its beauty; Blanche sucked her teeth and said it was a nuisance. He didn't answer, and she began to taunt it, choking it with rings of smoke till it arched its back and sprang. It fell on her belly with a thwack and did a war dance on her birthmark, a swatch of brown below her navel. She watched it for a while, amused by its bravery, then whipped her body sideways, shimmering the flesh on her hips, and spilled the lizard to the floor.
Fire closed his eyes.
Last night he'd dreamed that they'd wallowed in a muddy ditch in a sunflower field. Her belly was wet with almond oil and her nipples were gummed with molasses. A believer in fate and the wisdom of dreams, he'd been dreaming of molasses for months now. Blanche was not the woman, though. He was sure. And denial was a way of preparing for her . . . whoever she might be.
Blanche watched as he rose, snatched glances as he dressed. He was tall and rangy. His hair was a cluster of twists and curls. His body looked like a pencil sketch, proportioned but not detailed, except in the chest and upper back.
He went to the terrace and sat in a rocker beneath a brace of ferns, which rustled and fluttered like moody hens. The land cruised away below him, drained through an orchard to an old stone fence, then plunged in an avalanche of crabgrass and buttercups to a terraced farm. Beyond the valley, surreal through the mist, was the broad, flat face of Kingston.
He took a mango from a bowl and peeled it with his teeth. What would he say to her? How would he say it? She was singing in the shower now. He imagined her body--the swell of her thighs, the rise of her ass. And, of course, her breasts. When would he say it? Soon, he thought . . . but not right now.
Resting the fruit on a stack of books, he picked up the poem he'd begun the day before.
I dare not love you as you deserve.
It is not that I don't know how.
Colin Channer (Kingston, 13 oktober 1963)
De Amerikaanse dichter en schrijver Arna Wendell Bontemps werd geboren op 13 oktober 1902 in Alexandria in Louisiana. Toen hij drie was verhuisde zijn familie naar Los Angeles. Hij studeer af aan het Pacific Union College en ging in 1923 naar New York om les te geven aan de Harlem Academy. Als student was hij al begonnen met schrijven. Voor zijn belangrijke werk The Story of the Negro (1948) ontving hij de Jane Adams Book Award. Het beroemdste boek van hem is de roman novel God Sends Sunday uit 1931. Na een graad behaald te hebben in bibliotheekwetenschappen werkte Bontemps vanaf 1943 als bibliohecaris aan de Fisk University in Nashville. Door zijn werk leverde hij een belangrijke bijdrage aan de ontwikkeling van de Afrikaans-Amerikaanse literatuur. Bontemps was een vooraanstaand exponent van de Harlem Renaissance.
Southern Mansion
Poplars are standing there still as death
And ghosts of dead men
Meet their ladies walking
Two by two beneath the shade
And standing on the marble steps.
There is a sound of music echoing
Through the open door
And in the field there is
Another sound tinkling in the cotton:
Chains of bondmen dragging on the ground.
The years go back with an iron clank,
A hand is on the gate,
A dry leaf trembles on the wall.
Ghosts are walking.
They have broken roses down
And poplars stand there still as death.
Nocturne of the Wharves
All night they whine upon their ropes and boom
against the dock with helpless prows:
these little ships that are too worn for sailing
front the wharf but do not rest at all.
Tugging at the dim gray wharf they think
no doubt of China and of bright Bombay,
and they remember islands of the East,
Formosa and the mountains of Japan.
They think of cities ruined by the sea
and they are restless, sleeping at the wharf.
Tugging at the dim gray wharf they think
no less of Africa. An east wind blows
and salt spray sweeps the unattended decks.
Shouts of dead men break upon the night.
The captain calls his crew and they respond--
the little ships are dreaming--land is near.
But mist comes up to dim the copper coast,
mist dissembles images of the trees.
The captain and his men alike are lost
and their shouts go down in the rising sound of waves.
Ah little ships, I know your weariness!
I know the sea-green shadows of your dream.
For I have loved the cities of the sea,
and desolations of the old days I
have loved: I was a wanderer like you
and I have broken down before the wind.
Arna Wendell Bontemps (13 oktober 1902 4 juni 1973)
De Amerikaanse schrijver Conrad Richter werd geboren op 13 oktober 1890 in Pine Grove, Pennsylvania. Hij werd redacteur bij een plaatselijke krant toen hij negentien was. In 1911 verhuisde hij naar Cleveland, Ohio en werd hij de privé-secretaris van een welgestelde familie. Om gezondheidsredenen trok hij later naar Albuquerque, New Mexico. Enkele van zijn boeken, zoals The Sea of Grass en The Light in the Forest werden later verfilmd. Voor The Town kreeg hij in 1951 de Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.
Uit: The Light in the Forest
The boy was about fifteen years old. He tried to stand very straight and still when he heard the news, but inside of him everything had gone black. It wasn't that he couldn't endure pain. In summer he would put a stone hot from the fire on his flesh to see how long he could stand it. In winter he would sit in the icy river until his Indian father smoking on the bank said he could come out. It made him strong against any hardship that would come to him, his father said. But if it had any effect on this thing that had come to him now, the boy couldn't tell what it was.
For days word had been reaching the Indian village that the Lenni Lenape and Shawanose must give up their white prisoners. Never for a moment did the boy dream that it meant him. Why, he had been one of them since he could remember! Cuyloga was his father. Eleven years past he had been adopted to take the place of a son dead from the yellow vomit. More than once he had been told how, when he was only four years old, his father had said words that took out his white blood and put Indian blood in its place. His white thoughts and meanness had been wiped away and the brave thoughts of the Indian put in their stead. Ever since, he had been True Son, the blood of Cuyloga and flesh of his flesh. For eleven years he had lived here, a native of this village on the Tuscarawas, a full member of the family. Then how could he be torn from his home like a sapling from the ground and given to the alien whites who were his enemy!
The day his father told him, the boy made up his mind. Never would he give up his Indian life. Never! When no one saw him, he crept away from the village. From an oldcampfire, he blackened his face. Up above Pockhapockink, which means the stream between two hills, he had once found a hollow tree. Now he hid himself in it. He thought only he knew the existence of that tree and was dismayed when his father tracked him to it. It was humiliating to be taken back with his blackened face and tied up in his father's cabin like some prisoner to be burned at the stake. When his father led him out next morning, he knew everybody watched: his mother and sisters, the townspeople, his uncle and aunt, his cousins and his favorite cousin, Half Arrow, with whom he had ever fished, hunted and played. Seldom had they been separated even for a single day.
Conrad Richter (13 oktober 1890 30 oktober 1968)
13-10-2008 om 20:18
geschreven door Romenu 
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