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De Zuid-Afrikaanse schrijver Wilbur Addison Smith werd geboren in Broken Hill in Zimbabwe (Rhodesië) op 9 januari 1933. Zie ook mijn blog van 9 januari 2009.xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />
Uit: The Quest
Two lonely figures came down from the high mountains. They were dressed in travel-worn furs and leather helmets with ear-flaps strapped beneath their chins against the cold. Their beards were untrimmed and their faces weatherbeaten. They carried all their meagre possessions upon their backs. It had taken a hard and daunting journey to reach this spot. Although he led, Meren had no inkling where they were, neither was he sure why they had come so far. Only the old man who followed close behind him knew that, and he had not yet chosen to enlighten Meren.
Since leaving Egypt they had crossed seas and lakes and many mighty rivers; they had traversed vast plains and forests. They had encountered strange and dangerous animals and even stranger and more dangerous men. Then they had entered the mountains, a prodigious chaos of snowy peaks and gaping gorges, where the thin air was hard to breathe. Their horses had died in the cold and Meren had lost the tip of one finger, burned black and rotting by the crackling frosts. Fortunately it was not the finger of his sword hand, nor one of those that released the arrow from his great bow.
Meren stopped on the brink of the last sheer cliff. The old man came up beside him. His fur coat was made from the skin of a snow tiger that Meren had slain with a single arrow as it sprang upon him. Standing shoulder to shoulder, they looked down on a foreign land of rivers and dense green jungles.
Five years, Meren said. Five years we have been upon the road. Is this the end of the journey, Magus?
Ha, good Meren, surely it has not been that long? Taita asked, and his eyes sparkled teasingly under frost-white brows.
In reply Meren unslung his sword scabbard from his back and displayed the lines of notches scratched in the leather. I have recorded every day, should you wish to count them, he assured him. He had followed Taita and protected him for more than half his own lifetime, but he was still never entirely certain whether the other was serious or merely jesting with him. But you have not answered my question, revered Magus. Have we reached the end of our journey?
Wilbur Smith (Broken Hill, 9 januari 1933)
De Duitse schrijver, columnist en journalist Kurt Tucholsky werd geboren in Berlijn op 9 januari 1890. Zie ook mijn blog van 9 januari 2009.
Uit: Berlin! Berlin!
Diese Stadt zieht mit gefurchter Stirne - sit venia verbo! - ihren Karren im ewig selben Gleis. Und merkt nicht, daß sie ihn im Kreise herumzieht und nicht vom Fleck kommt. Der Berliner kann sich nicht unterhalten. Manchmal sieht man zwei Leute miteinander sprechen, aber sie unterhalten sich nicht, sondern sie sprechen nur ihre Monologe gegeneinander.
Die Berliner können auch nicht zuhören. Sie warten nur ganz gespannt, bis der andere aufgehört hat, zu reden, und dann haken sie ein. Auf diese Weise werden viele berliner Konversationen geführt.
Die Berlinerin ist sachlich und klar. Auch in der Liebe. Geheimnisse hat sie nicht. Sie ist ein braves, liebes Mädel, das der galante Ortsliederdichter gern und viel feiert.
Der Berliner hat vom Leben nicht viel, es sei denn, er verdiente Geld. Geselligkeit pflegt er nicht, weil das zu viel Umstände macht - er kommt mit seinen Bekannten zusammen, beklatscht sich ein bißchen und wird um zehn Uhr schläfrig.
Der Berliner ist ein Sklave seines Apparats. Er ist Fahrgast, Theaterbesucher, Gast in den Restaurants und Angestellter. Mensch weniger. Der Apparat zupft und zerrt an seinen Nervenenden, und er gibt hemmungslos nach. Er tut alles, was die Stadt von ihm verlangt nur leben ... das leider nicht.
Der Berliner schnurrt seinen Tag herunter, und wenns fertig ist, dann ists Mühe und Arbeit gewesen. Weiter nichts. Man kann siebzig Jahre in dieser Stadt leben, ohne den geringsten Vorteil für seine unsterbliche Seele.
Früher war Berlin einmal ein gut funktionierender Apparat. Eine ausgezeichnet angefertigte Wachspuppe, die selbsttätig Arme und Beine bewegte, wenn man zehn Pfennig oben hineinwarf. Heute kann man viele Zehnpfennigstücke hineinwerfen, die Puppe bewegt sich kaum - der Apparat ist eingerostet und arbeitet nur noch träge und langsam. Denn gar häufig wird in Berlin gestreikt. Warum -? So genau weiß man das nicht. Manche Leute sind dagegen, und manche Leute sind dafür. Warum -? So genau weiß man das nicht.
Die Berliner sind einander spinnefremd. Wenn sie sich nicht irgendwo vorgestellt sind, knurren sie sich in der Straße und in den Bahnen an, denn sie haben miteinander nicht viel Gemeinsames. Sie wollen voneinander nichts wissen, und jeder lebt ganz für sich. Berlin vereint die Nachteile einer amerikanischen Großstadt mit denen einer deutschen Provinzstadt. Seine Vorzüge stehen im Baedeker.
In der Sommerfrische sieht der Berliner jedes Jahr, daß man auch auf der Erde leben kann. Er versuchte vier Wochen, es gelingt ihm nicht - denn er hat es nicht gelernt und weiß nicht, was das ist: leben - und wenn er dann wieder glücklich auf dem Anhalter Bahnhof landet, blinzelt er seiner Straßenbahnlinie zu und freut sich, daß er wieder in Berlin ist. Das Leben hat er vergessen.
Kurt Tucholsky (9 januari 1890 - 21 december 1935)
De Ierse schrijver Brian Friel werd geboren op 9 januari 1929 geboren in Omagh, Noord-Ierland, in een katholiek onderwijzersgezin. Zie ook mijn blog van 9 januari 2009.
Uit: Faith Healerxml:namespace prefix = v ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:vml" />
GRACE. Abergorlech, Abergynolwyn, Llandefeilog, Llanerchymedd, Aberhosan, Aberporth ...
It's winter, it's night, it's raining, the Welsh roads are narrow, we're on our way to a performance. He always called it a performance, teasing the word with that mocking voice of his -- "Where do I perform tonight?" "Do you expect a performance in a place like this?" -- as if it were a game he might take part in only if he felt like it, maybe because that was the only way he could talk about it. Anyhow Teddy's driving as usual, and I'm in the passenger seat, and he's immediately behind us, the Fantastic Francis Hardy, Faith Healer, with his back to us and the whiskey bottle between his legs, and he's squatting on the floor of the van -- no, not squatting -- crouched, wound up, concentrated, and happy -- no, not happy, certainly not happy, I don't think he ever knew what happiness was -- but always before a performance he'd be ... in complete mastery -- yes, that's close to it -- in such complete mastery that everything is harmonized for him, in such mastery that anything is possible. And when you speak to him he turns his head and looks beyond you with those damn benign eyes of his, looking past you out of his completion, out of that private power, out of that certainty that was accessible only to him. God, how I resented that privacy! And he's reciting the names of all those dying Welsh villages -- Aberarder, Aberayron, Llangranog, Llangurig -- releasing them from his mouth in that special voice he used only then, as if he were blessing them or consecrating himself. And then, for him, I didn't exist. Many, many, many times I didn't exist for him. But before a performance this exclusion -- no, it wasn't an exclusion, it was an erasion -- this erasion was absolute: he obliterated me. Me who tended him, humoured him, nursed him, sustained him -- who debauched myself for him. Yes. That's the most persistent memory. Yes. And when I remember him like that in the back of the van, God how I hate him again --
Kinlochbervie, Inverbervie,
Inverdruie, Invergordon,
Badachroo, Kinlochewe,
Ballantrae, Inverkeithing,
Cawdor, Kirkconnel,
Plaidy, Kirkinner ...
(quietly, almost dreamily) Kinlochbervie's where the baby's buried, two miles south of the village, in a field of the lefthand side of the road as you go north. Funny, isn't it, but I've never met anybody who's been to Kinlochbervie, not even Scottish people. But it is a very small village and very remote, right away up in the north of Sutherland, about as far north as you can go in Scotland.
Brian Friel (Omagh, 9 januari 1929)
De Estlandse schrijver August Gailit werd geboren op 9 januari 1891 in Kuiksilla, Sangaste. Zie ook mijn blog van 9 januari 2009.
Uit: Toomas Nipernaadi
And the meadows are so brown, so brown and so grey, slopes and hollows brimming with early snow. I am flying, and feel as if everything is already past, as if Ill never see those woods, those meadows and marshes again - this is the last flight, then farewell. In the distant south, my proud wings will fold forever, and my white neck will droop. Sensing the transience of life, I try to take the last look down, as if wishing to take with me all those places where Ive flown around so proudly for so many summers. Have you ever heard the song of the swans? It is but a scream, a horrifying, weird, wild scream, as if discarding the last ounce of vitality and joy to the fields below that stare back like a lover grown old.
Grey columns of smoke are ascending from huts and cottages into the crisp autumn air, the dogs bark, caravans move along the roads, rivers and lakes already hide under their icy cover, but all that is so far from me, so far! I still see - but my heart is cold and silent. I cannot, after all, take anything with me, the grave awaits me, and me alone.
Why am I thinking of autumn and transience in mid-summer?
Who knows, dear Anne-Mari - this summer might well be my last journey and my last farewell. What comes next, is something quite different.
These white nights make us sad and crazy.
Id love to utter only tender words, but my lips reek of rotting corpse. At nights like this, our soul abandons its husk and wanders around restlessly, God only knows along which solitary roads and paths. In which marshes and thickets does it make friends with goblins, ferns and witches, what parties it attends in the company of ghosts! Perhaps it wanders in foreign lands and places where our mind will never take us. Maybe this is why we, northerners, yearn for new countries and new worlds, so that no place feels like home. Even our fathers house is like the shadow of a tree to a gypsy, where he will rest awhile, but never stay. The higher the sun climbs, the more restless we become, we resemble birds caught in a net, eyes bloodshot and mouth full of anguished screams. Our white nights have thus become nights of suffering, anxiety and sadness. The soul has departed, travelling its own course, while the shell, stuck firmly to ground, is distressed and uneasy, because it is rooted to its land like a tree clings with its roots, wishing the soul to return.
This is probably why I cannot keep still either.
I feverishly grasp every thought and plan, totally unable to calm down. One thought chases the other, one venture leads to ten more. I mostly mean well, but it often ends in misery. Just my bad luck, my dear.
August Gailit (9 januari 1891 5 november 1960)
De Hebreeuwse dichter, schrijver en vertaler Chaim Nachman Bialik werd geboren in Radi, Oekraïne, op 9 januari 1873. Zie ook mijn blog van 9 januari 2009.
Alone
Wind blew, light drew them all.
New songs revive their mornings.
Only I, small bird, am forsaken
under the Shekhinas wing.
Alone. I remain alone.
The Shekhinas broken wing
trembled over my head. My heart knew hers:
her fear for her only son.
Driven from every ridge
one desolate corner left
in the House of Study she hides in shadow,
and I alone share her pain.
Imprisoned beneath her wing
my heart longed for the light.
She buried her face on my shoulder
and a tear fell on my page.
Dumbly she clung and wept.
Her broken wing sheltered me:
scattered to the four winds of heaven;
they are gone, and I am alone.
It was an ancient lament
a suppliant cry I heard
in that lost and silent weeping,
and in that scalding tear.
Vertaald door Ruth Nevo
Chaim Nachman Bialik (9 januari 1873 4 juli 1934)
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