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De Nederlandse schrijver en dichter J. Bernlef werd geboren op 14 januari 1937 in Sint Pancras. Zie ook mijn blog van 14 januari 2007 en ook mijn blog van 14 januari 2008 en ook mijn blog van 14 januari 2009.xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />
Naderend onweer
Heel in de verte nog
rolt iemand van de trap
Dronken verhuizer
die de rommelzolder
Volstapelt met duister
rondkolkend huisraad
Met bijl en snijbrander
nadert hij ons interieur
In de palm van zijn hand
nu vlak boven ons
Valt in een flits
zijn plan te lezen.
Uit het oog uit het hart
Als het iemand is
is het dus die iemand
die ons neerslaat
wegmaait, al ons gras
Ik ben niet bestand tegen dit
alles vernietigende beeld
Daarom leg ik een steen
in een doos, sluit de deksel
begraaf zo de stilte achter zijn naam
Als het iemand is
is hij hier niet
is hij die steen in die doos
ook niet.
Het laatste woord
Wantrouwen in grote woorden
in kleine woorden, voegwoorden
tussenwerpsels, in het laatste woord
dat iedereen wil en niemand krijgt.
Een totale gespreksstop
met strenge straffen
tong uitrukken wel het minste.
Het paard langs de spoorbaan
staart de sneltreinen na
het gras wacht op de vallende nacht
de steen koestert zich in het lage licht.
Waarom hebt u mij verlaten?
Wat een lachwekkende klacht!
J. Bernlef (Sint Pancras, 14 januari 1937)
De Japanse schrijver Yukio Mishima werd geboren op 14 januari 1925 in Tokyo. Zie ook mijn blog van 14 januari 2007 en ook mijn blog van 14 januari 2008 en ook mijn blog van 14 januari 2009.
Uit: Fountains in the Rain (Vertaald door John Bester)
The boy was tired of walking in the rain dragging the girl, heavy as a sandbag and weeping continually, around with him. A short while ago, in a tea shop in the Marunouchi Building, he had told her he was leaving her.
The first time in his life that he'd broken with a woman!
It was something he had long dreamed of; it had at last become a reality. It was for this alone that he had loved her, or pretended to love her; for this alone he had assiduously undermined her defenses; for this alone he'd furiously sought the chance to sleep with her, slept with her - till lo, the preparations were complete and it only remained to pronounce the phrase he had longed to pronounce just once with his own lips, with due authority, like the edict of a king:
"It's time to break it off!"
Those words, the mere enunciation of which would be enough to rend the sky asunder...those words that he had cherished so passionately even while half-resigned to the impossibility of the fact...that phrase, more heroic, more glorious than any other in the world, which would fly in a straight line through the heavens like an arrow released from its bow...that spell which only the most human of humans, the most manly of men, might utter...in short:
"It's time to break it off!"
Yukio Mishima (14 januari 1925 - 25 november 1970)
De Amerikaanse schrijver John Dos Passos werd geboren op 14 januari 1896 in Chicago. Zie ook mijn blog van 14 januari 2007 en ook mijn blog van 14 januari 2008 en ook mijn blog van 14 januari 2009.
Uit: The Big Money
Their first child was born in December. It was a boy. They named him Wheatley. When Gladys came back from the hospital instead of coming back to the apartment she went into the new house out at Grosse Pointe that still smelt of paint and raw plaster. What with the hospital expenses and the furniture bills and Christmas, Charley had to borrow twenty thousand from the bank. He spent more time than ever talking over the phone to Nat Bentons [his brokers] office in New York. Gladys bought a lot of new clothes and kept tiffany glass bowls full of freesias and narcissus all over the house. Even on the dressingtable in her bathroom she always had flowers. Mrs. Wheatley said she got her love of flowers from her grandmother Randolph, because the Wheatleys had never been able to tell one flower from another. When the next child turned out to be a girl, Gladys said, as she lay in the hospital, her face looking drawn and yellow against the white pillows, beside the great bunch of glittering white orchids Charley had ordered from the florist at five dollars a bloom, she wished she could name her Orchid. They ended by naming her Marguerite after Gladyss grandmother Randolph.
John Dos Passos (14 januari 1896 28 september 1970)
Luis Quintanilla schilderde Dos Passos als zondagschilder
De Britse schrijver en journalist Edward St Aubyn werd geboren op 14 januari 1960 in Londen. Zie ook mijn blog van 14 januari 2009.
Uit: Some Hope
Patrick walked toward the well. In his hand he carried a gray plastic sword with a gold handle, and swished it at the pink flowers of the valerian plants that grew out of the terrace wall. When there was a snail on one of the fennel stems, he sliced his sword down the stalk and made it fall off. If he killed a snail he had to stamp on it quickly and then run away, because it went all squishy like blowing your nose. Then he would go back and have a look at the broken brown shell stuck in the soft gray flesh, and would wish he hadn't done it. It wasn't fair to squash the snails after it rained because they came out to play, bathing in the pools under the dripping leaves and stretching out their horns. When he touched their horns they darted back and his hand darted back as well. For snails he was like a grown-up.
One day, when he was not intending to go there, he had been surprised to find himself next to the well and so he decided that the route he had discovered was a secret short cut. Now he always went that way when he was alone. He walked through a terrace of olive trees where yesterday the wind had made the leaves flick from green to gray and gray to green, like running his fingers back and forth over velvet, making it turn pale and dark again.
He had shown Andrew Bunnill the secret short cut and Andrew said it was longer than the other way, and so he told Andrew he was going to throw him down the well. Andrew was feeble and had started to cry. When Andrew flew back to London, Patrick said he would throw him out of the plane. Blub, blub, blub. Patrick wasn't even on the plane, but he told Andrew he would be hiding under the floor and would saw a circle around his chair. Andrew's nanny said that Patrick was a nasty little boy, and Patrick said it was just because Andrew was so wet.
Edward St Aubyn (Londen, 14 januari 1960)
De Chinese schrijfster Anchee Min werd geboren in Shanghai op 14 januari 1957. Zie ook mijn blog van 14 januari 2009.
Uit: Red Azalea
I was raised on the teachings of Mao and on the operas of Madam Mao, Comrade Jiang Ching. I became a leader of the Little Red Guards in elementary school. This was during the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution when red was my color. My parents lived like--as the neighbors described them--a pair of chopsticks: always in harmony My father was an instructor of industrial technique drawing at Shanghai Textile Institute, although his true love was astronomy. My mother was a teacher at a Shanghai middle school. She taught whatever the Party asked, one semester in Chinese and the next in Russian. My parents both believed in Mao and the Communist Party, just like everybody else in the neighborhood. They had four children, each one a year apart. I was born in 1957. We lived in the city, on South Luxuriant Road in a small two-story townhouse occupied by two families. The house was left by my grandfather, who had died of tuberculosis right before I was born.
I was an adult since the age of five. That was nothing unusual. The kids I played with all carried their family's little ones on their backs, tied with a piece of cloth. The little ones played with their own snot while we played hide-and-seek. I was put in charge of managing the family because my parents were in their working units all day, just like everyone else's parents.
I called my sisters and brother my children because I had to pick each one of them up from kindergarten and nursery school while I myself was only a kindergartner. I was six when my sister Blooming was five, my second sister Coral was four and my brother Space Conqueror was three. My parents made careful choices in the names they gave us, They were considered eccentric because the neighbors named their children Guard of Red, Big Leap, Long March, Red Star, Liberation, Revolution, New China, Road of Russia, Resist U.S., Patriotic Forerunner, Matchless Red Soldier, etc. My parents had their own ideas. First they called me Lin-Shuan--Rising Sun at a Mountain. They dropped it because Mao was considered the only sun. After further contemplation, they named me Anchee--Jade of Peace. Also, it sounded like the Chinese pronunciation of the English word "angel." They registered me with it. Blooming and Coral were named after the sound of chee (jade). There were two reasons why my parents named my brother Space Conqueror: one was that my father loved astronomy; the second was to respond to Mao's call that China would soon build its own spaceship.
Anchee Min (Shanghai, 14 januari 1957)
Zie voor nog meer schrijvers van de 14e januari ook mijn twee vorige blogs van vandaag.
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