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De Canadese dichter, schrijver, essayist en filmmaker Jacques Godbout werd geboren op 27 november 1933 in Montreal, Quebec. Hij volgde opleidingen aan het Collège Jean-de-Brébeuf en aan de Université de Montréal en doceerde daarna een tijdje Frans in Ethiopië. In 1958 begon hij te werken voor de National Film Board of Canada (NFB) als producer en scriptwriter. Hij was actief tijdens Quebec's Quiet Revolution en schreef in die tijd een aantal essays, later gebundeld in Le Murmure marchand (1984). Godbout schreef negen romans en twee kinderboeken.xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />
Uit: Operation Rimbaud (Vertaald door Patricia Claxton)
Before we begin, lets say this is a sulphurous story, it smells of the devil, stale volcanoes, wooden matches, those lemon yellow pyramids beside factories, sulphuric acid baths.
You say most people cant tell the difference between the smell of sulphur and the smell of rotten eggs? All right, so this story smells of rotten eggs.Youll have to hold your nose if you want to hear it. Anyway, here I am this morning, writing something sacrilegious, satanic, scandalous. Ive put away my incense burner, Ive had it with ceremonials.
Through the window of my room overlooking the ocean, all the way to the far side of the bay, there are valiant souls pushing their surfboards out to sea. The picture comforts me, tells me Im not the only token Sisyphus on earth. If it takes my last breath, Im going to tell all with what Im writing. Adieu, do-gooders!
I had to withdraw from the world in order to write and protect my backside. Having no particular liking for mountain retreats, miraculous grottoes, or Dominican monasteries, I chose this hotel, where Im as anonymous as I choose and dont risk running into stooges. Its a luxury I can treat myself to before perhaps ending up in the morgue. I arrived here with my backpack, a long beard, and a credit card. From the minute you enter, the Hôtel du Palais in Biarritz offers you an atmosphere of calm in a spacious lobby thats scented with jasmine and softly hued. The tiny receptionist behind her walnut counter is particularly comely, her face magnificently made up. The porter, to the left near the elevators and grand staircase, is reliably as deferent as a Swiss banker. Modern comfort in a nineteenth-century setting is found here. Indeed, this once was the palace of Napoléon iii and the Empress Eugénie. It was turned into a casino, then into a luxury hotel for crowned heads, was
burned down, rebuilt, then occupied during the war by the Germans, who assuredly had less fun than the movie stars after the Führers defeat. This is a huge building of painted brick in the purest English castle style. They say that the Duke of Windsor and his duchess felt at home in this hotel.
As for me, I feel at home anywhere. Content in some tiny cell, comfortable in high society. Im a barely domesticated animal, an alley cat that knows how to behave.
The idea of taking up quarters in Biarritz came to me when I learned from Paris Match that the Emperor Hailé Selassie, the Lion of Juda, had spent several weeks here after I had met him in Montreal in March. We have since become bosom buddies, if I may say so. His Majesty had left Canada for Europe, and I thought he was back in the capital of Ethiopia as agreed, whereas he was really bathing with his court and drowning his fleas in the hotels huge open-air pool.You cant trust anyone anymore.
Jacques Godbout (Montreal, 27 november 1933 )
De Franse schrijver Philippe Delerm werd geboren op 27 november 1950 in Auvers-sur-Oise. Hij studeerde literatuur in Nanterre en doceert aan het Collège Marie Curie in Bernay. In 1983 trok hij al de aandacht met 'La Cinquième saison', maar zijn doorbraak kwam met La Première gorgée de bière et autres plaisirs minuscules, een verzameling korte verhalen uit 1997.
Uit: Le Buveur de Temps
Oui, cest moi dans la bulle, à la surface du papier glacé. Votre main passe sur le livre, caresse le mirage, et ne dérange rien. Je suis dans la couleur du jour ; une aube imperceptible, ou bien peut-être un soir ; dans cette nuance idéale des premières pages : le rose informulé, tremblant, de tout ce qui commence, et davance le bleu voilé dune mélancolie légère il est toujours très tard dans le premier matin du monde. Mais vous avez tourné la page, écarté doucement le rideau froid de lapparence, et je vais naître au monde ; il suffit dun regard.
Je suis bien dans ma bulle. Bien ? Le mot résonne étrangement sur les parois de ma planète ; il est monté de votre terre en ondes chaudes, cest vous qui lavez suggéré. Enfin vous êtes au bord de me parler. Moi depuis si longtemps je vous regarde, à travers le grand voile. Jattendais. Je préparais en moi la douceur infinie de votre geste. Vous écartez le voile, et je suis presque là. Je vous connais. Vos rêves en mouvement, vos peurs, vos espérances, à lombre effrayante et magique de cet élan qui vous possède, et que vous appelez le temps. Je devine un peu son pouvoir, mais je ne recevrai jamais de lui la vie, la mort, le fil inexorable dun destin. Effleurer seulement son bonheur, sa blessure ; voilà sans doute mon désir secret.
La bulle flotte dans lespace et grandit lentement vers vous. Lenteur, silence, transparence : le monde doù je viens vous fait envie, je crois. Je lis dans vos regards ce rêve dun sommeil flottant dans la lumière. Mais vous le gardez pour plus tard, et passant devant le tableau vous dites simplement « cest beau », en prolongeant ces mots pour plonger dans mon ciel une seconde. « Cest beau, très beau », et puis vous allez repartir. La beauté ne vous suffit pas. Vous avez tellement mieux quelle. Ce vent qui vous possède et que je comprends mal, ce besoin de bouger, daller vers autre chose. Pourtant, vous êtes entré dans le musée pour arrêter le temps. Tous les tableaux, comme le mien, dans cette pièce fraîche à lombre de lété vous réclamaient loubli. Vous vous êtes arrêté. Vous avez pressenti léloignement de mon appel, au-delà du désert de sable.
Philippe Delerm (Auvers-sur-Oise, 27 november 1950)
De Canadese dichteres en schrijfster Nicole Brossard werd geboren op 27 november 1943 in Montreal (Quebec). Zie ook mijn blog van 27 november 2006 en ook mijn blog van 27 november 2007.
Uit: Notebook of Roses and Civilization
Closure;Nothing au bout
...
the c of cerise that is not yet a comma
between you and me and this foretaste of translation
traced like an arc in the mouth
an obsessive curve that could look like
your belly,or those typos found
in books
noise of goodbye or movement of the lips
ardour
the poem cant lose its momentum
make you suddenly turn around
as if the sea
were about to surge up at your back
in pages of foam and foment
as if the sea
with its syllables of water could
transpose death help you
to make slow curves in time
when were struggling to hang on to solutions
why must we suddenly
stretch a part of our being toward fiction
step back from words just as we emerge from
the time of scars
dont forget to turn the page
with a light hand each time
so that the shadow doesnt touch
the front of solitude
...
arrive at this page burning.
others use the word light
to shake up reality. Lets see
if standing up you grab tomorrow naked
out of order
Vertaald door Robert Majzels and Erin Mouré
Nicole Brossard (Montreal, 27 november 1943)
De Amerikaanse dichter en prozaïst James Agee werd geboren in Knoxville, Tennessee.op 27 november 1909. Zie ook mijn blog van 27 november 2006.
PERMIT ME VOYAGE
Take these who will as may be: I
Am careless now of what they fail:
My heart and mind discharted lie
And surely as the nerved nail
Appoints all quarters on the north
So now it designates him forth
My sovereign God my princely soul
Whereon my flesh is priestly stole:
Whence forth shall my heart and mind
To God through soul entirely bow,
Therein such strong increase to find
In truth as is my fate to know:
Small though that be great God I know
I know in this gigantic day
What God is ruined and I know
How labors with Godhead this day:
How from the porches of our sky
The crested glory is declined:
And hear with what translated cry
The stridden soul is overshined:
And how this world of wildness through
True poets shall walk who herald you:
Of whom God grant me of your grace
To be, that shall preserve this race.
Permit me voyage, Love, into your hands.
Sure on this shining night
Sure on this shining night
Of star made shadows round,
Kindness must watch for me
This side the ground.
The late year lies down the north.
All is healed, all is health.
High summer holds the earth.
Hearts all whole.
Sure on this shining night I weep
for wonder wand'ring far
alone
Of shadows on the stars.
James Agee (27 november 1909 - 16 mei 1955)
De Duitstalige, joodse, Oostenrijkse, Russische en Chinese schrijfster Klara Blum werd geboren op 27 november 1904 in Czernowitz in de Bukowina. Zie ook mijn blog van 27 november 2006.
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