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De Amerikaanse schrijfster V. C. Andrews (eig. Cleo Virginia Andrews) werd geboren in Portsmouth op 6 juni 1923. Veel boeken hebben te maken met familiegeheimen en verboden liefde. Haar bekendste omnibus is Bloemen op Zolder (1979). Dit is een verhaal over vier kinderen die op de zolder van hun overreligieuze oma worden verstopt. Andrews overleed op 63-jarige leeftijd in 1986 aan borstkanker. Omdat haar boeken zo succesvol waren werd er na haar dood een schrijver gehuurd, Andrew Neiderman, om haar boeken af te maken.
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Uit: Flowers in the Attic
Truly, when I was very young, way back in the Fifties, I believed all of life would be like one long and perfect summer day. After all, it did start out that way. There''s not much I can say about our earliest childhood except that it was very good, and for that, I should be everlastingly grateful. We weren''t rich, we weren''t poor. If we lacked some necessity, I couldn''t name it; if we had luxuries, I couldn''t name those, either, without comparing what we had to what others had, and nobody had more or less in our middle-class neighborhood. In other words, short and simple, we were just ordinary, run-of-the-mill children. Our daddy was a P.R. man for a large computer manufacturing firm located in Gladstone, Pennsylvania: population, 12,602. He was a huge success, our father, for often his boss dined with us, and bragged about the job Daddy seemed to perform so well. "It''s that all-Amarican, wholesome, devastatingly good-looking face and charming manner that does them in. Great God in heaven, Chris, what sensible person could resist a fella like you?" Heartily, I agreed with that. Our father was perfect. He stood six feet two, weighed 180 pounds, and his hair was thick and flaxen blond, and waved just enough to be perfect; his eyes were cerulean blue and they sparkled with laughter, with his great zest for living and having fun. His nose was straight and neither too long nor too narrow, nor too thick. He played tennis and golf like a pro and swam so much he kept a suntan all through the year. He was always dashing off on airplanes to California, to Florida, to Arizona, or to Hawaii, or even abroad on business, while we were left at home in the care of our mother.
V. C. Andrews (6 juni 1923 - 19 december 1986)
De Engelse schrijfster Lesley Blanch werd geboren op 6 juni 1904 in Londen geboren. De liefde voor reizen kreeg ze van haar moeder. De kunst van het schrijven en de liefde voor oosterste landen had ze van haar vader. Ze studeerde schilderkunst aan de kunstacademie The Slade School of Fine Art. In 1937 werd Blanch na redactiewerk hoofdredactrice voor Vogue in Groot-Brittannië. Hier stopte ze in 1944 mee. Tussen 1944 en 1961 was Blanch getrouwd met de Franse auteur Romain Gary. Toen in 1954 haar eerste boek The Wilder Shores of Love uit kwam, was Lesley Blanch al een bekend journalist en reiziger. Blanch, die later nog kookboeken en een 11-delige autobiografie schreef, overleed op 102-jarige leeftijd.
Uit: Journey into the minds eye
The Traveller was from Moscow, 'a Muscovite' he said, but later I was to learn he was of Tartar blood; and unmistakably, the Ta-tze or Mongol hordes had stamped their imprint on his strange countenance. The dark slit eyes, the pointed ears, the Chinese-bald skull, the slight, yet cruel smile which sometimes passed across his usually impassive face all these spoke of Asia, where he roamed, in spirit, and in fact.
Whenever he came to Europe, he would visit us, and then, reaching my nursery, sit beside the fire, his huge shadow spread-eagled - a double-headed Russian eagle to me across the rosy wallpaper. Shrugging and gesticulating with odd, unexpected movements, his long, bent-back fingers cracking, the nail of one little finger sprouted to astonishing length, he would spin a marvellous web of countries, cities, people and things, conjuring for me a world of shimmering images.
Every Easter, I received the lovely painted eggs of Russian tradition; some were in papier mâché, elaborately decorated with the Imperial eagle or some regimental insignia; some were gaily painted with peasant designs. When I was six he had sent a tiny one in dark blue enamel with a ribbon of pin's-head diamonds around it, a lavish Fabergé toy. 'Diamonds for a child! It doesn't seem natural does it?' sniffed Nanny, putting it out of reach, until my mother appropriated it for her dressing-table, where it hung beside the looking-glass, on a blue ribbon.
Lesley Blanch (6 juni 1904 - 6 mei 2007)
De Franse dichter en schrijver Jean Raphaël Marie Noël Cayrol werd geboren op 6 juni 1911 in Bordeaux. Tot zijn bekendste werken behoren « Poèmes de la nuit et du brouillard (1945) en Muriel ou le temps d'un retour (1963) die allebei door Alain Resnais werden verfilmd. In Poèmes de la nuit et du brouillard verwerkte hij zijn tijd in het verzet tijdens WO II, zijn gevangenname in 1942 en zijn deportatie naar het concentratiekamp Mauthausen-Gusen waar hij vanaf 1943 dwangarbeid moest verrichten. Als uitgever bij Éditions du Seuil was hij ontdekker en promotor van schrijvers als Philippe Sollers en Denis Roche. Cayrol was lid van de Académie Goncourt.
Jaccuse
Au nom du mort qui fut sans nom
Au nom des portes verrouillées
Au nom de larbre qui répond
Au nom des plaies au nom des prés mouillés
Au nom du ciel en feu de nos remords
Au nom dun père qui naura plus de fils
Au nom du livre où le sage sendort
Au nom de tous les fruits qui mûrissent
Au nom de lennemi au nom du vrai combat
Où loiseau avait fait son nid
Au nom du grand retour de flamme et de soldats
Au nom des feuilles dans le puits
Au nom des justices sommaires
Au nom de la paix si faible et dans nos bras
Au nom des nuits vivantes dune mère
Au nom dun peuple dont seffacent les pas
Au nom de tous les noms qui nont plus de renom
Au nom des lois remuantes au nom des Voix
Qui disent oui qui disent non
Au nom des hommes aux yeux de proie
Amour je te livre aux premières fureurs de la Joie.
Jean Cayrol (6 juni 1911 10 februari 2005)
De Poolse schrijfster Eliza Orzeszkowa werd geboren op 6 juni 1842 in Hrodna in het gouvernement Grodno (tegenwoordig Belarus). Vanaf 1863 publiceerde zij romans in de trand van George Sand die vaak de onderdrukking van intellectuele vrouwen door hun begriploze mannen tot onderwerp hebben. Zij brak echter pas door met haar romans Eli Makower (1874) en Meir Ezofowicz (1878), waarin de strijd tussen joodse orthodoxie en religieuze vrijheid centraal staat.
Uit: An Obscure Apostle (Vertaald door C. S. De Soissons)
Far, far from the line of the railroads which run through the Bialorus (a part of Poland around the city of Mohileff which now belongs to Russia), far from even the navigable River Dzwina, in one of the most remote corners of the country, amidst quiet, large, level fields--still existing in some parts of Europe--between two sandy roads which disappear into the depths of a great forest, there is a group of gray houses of different sizes standing so closely together that anyone looking at them would say that they had been seized by some great fright and had crowded together in order to be able to exchange whispers and tears.
This is Szybow, a town inhabited by Israelites, almost exclusively, with the exception of a small street at the end of the place in which, in a few houses, live a few very poor burghers and very quiet
old retired officials.
It is the only street that is quiet, and the only street in which flowers bloom in summer. In the other streets no flowers bloom, and they are dreadfully noisy. There the people talk and move about continually, industriously, passionately, within the houses and in the narrow dark alleys called streets, and in the round, comparatively large market-place in the centre of the town, around which there are numerous doors of stinking small shops.
Eliza Orzeszkowa (6 juni 1842 18 mei 1910)
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