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Linked222 est soutenu éditorialement par la maison d'édition japonaise Naka-Shobou de Mr. Nakamura, Naka City -Ibaraki (Japon). Mr Nakamura nous fait l'honneur de témoigner sur son site du sérieux et de l'intérêt de notre entretien avec l'historien S.Kobayashi. Mr Nakamura, très soucieux de comprendre les causes de l'influence conservatrice en Ibaraki, publie des études régionales faisant référence sur ce thème. La maison Naka Shobou propose donc dans cette optique de nombreuses enquêtes de fond historiques, économiques, judiciaires et politiques mais également des ouvrages culturels et socioéducatifs pour enfants et personnes du 3ème âge. Naka Shobou vient de publier les oeuvres de Migawa Tsuneo dont "Le village n'a pas été immergé" (2001) sur les oppositions au barrage d'Ogawa (enquêtes de dix ans d'un écrivain-reporter dans la région d'Ogawa et de Miwa), "Au-delà de la peur invisible" (2002), une interview de Mr. Murakami, Maire de Tôkaimura lors de la catastrophe nucléaire de 1999 (663 radioactivés, 2 morts). Ce livre emblématique insistera sur la remise en question de l'autorité administrative, économique et politique sacro-sainte du Prefet; 40 minutes après l'accident le Maire fera évacuer la population sur un rayon de 20km sans autorisation préfectorale, "En toute innocence" (2004), une interview de Mr. Suzuki, éminence grise de Mr. Iwakami, Préfet chrétien corrompu. Mr. Nakamura a également pubié les très importantes "Annales de la corruption de l'après-guerre en Ibaraki" (2000). ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Emma Dante, Nous soutenons l'oeuvre d'Emma Dante, Compagnia Sud Costa (Sicile) et "Madre Mafia" sa dernière création. Emma Dante propose dans "Madre Mafia" une plongée imaginaire dans le fait mafieux codifié, ritualisé, par des générations de croyants catholiques criminels (les familles mafieuses) et une vision métaphorique de l'arrière plan social et politique de Palerme et de la Sicile à laquelle nous ont bien praparé ses oeuvres précédentes. Ces oeuvres témoignent selon nous de ces fruits mûrs que portent désormais en elle la nouvelle génération des artistes siciliens. Elles témoignent aussi, sous un autre angle, de la souffrance enfin transcendée par le courage de la lutte civile antimafia en Sicile, en Italie et autour du bassin méditerranéen. Emma Dante nourrit enfin à travers sa vie d'artiste une recomposition du rôle de la femme dans la société sicilienne. Elle propose depuis des années une critique inflexible du quotidien des familles déshéritées, de la fierté de la soumission aux règles et aux pouvoirs, une vision autant qu' une condamnation, toujours sur le mode poétique, de l'enfermement communautaire, de l'humiliation, de la menace et de la peur... (nous devons l'information concernant Madre Mafia ainsi que cette belle photo d'Emma à un entretien que l'auteur accordera à Narcomafie en février 2007) Mohammed Dib A celui qui enchanta nos coeurs, nos esprits, nos lettres, à celui qui nous mit sur la piste de nos moyens, le désert, à celui qui inspira notre confiance, à celui qui nous laissa une place dans son vaste monde, bien à toi Mohammed, à notre rencontre, longue rencontre, cette soirée du livre arabe, il y a longtemps, inoubliable ami, si proche ami... Ta présence inspirera tout au long des années : désintérêt, humilité, dépouillement, audace, patience, refus des opportunismes religieux ou politiques. Tu nous inspireras la fermeté dans nos engagements, la loyauté, un certain secret, le désert encore, le silence...Tu nous parleras Mohammed, et tu nous parleras toujours, bien au delà de cette vie que tu contenais, que tu comprenais, que tu transmettais si bien, bien à toi Mohammed... (C.P.) Autre regard sur Mohammed Cristina Castello, nouveaux poèmes « Jasmins et bourreaux / Jazmines y verdugos », « Le chant des sirènes / El canto de las sirenas », « Nous rapatrier / Repatriarnos », « Semences »... "Prisonnières. On va nous emprisonner. Elles et moi. Elles. Des milliers de milliers d’âmes sveltes qui avec moi sont contrebandières De valeurs. D’utopies possibles. D’art. Art. Négation de la finitude humaine. Vivre sans masque est désir de beauté. "C’est mon rêve de toujours vigilante pour les rêves. C’est une soif de mains ouvertes. Cette soif si grande qu’elle m’étouffe. Je veux que chaque fenêtre éclaire un violon, un piano, une harpe. Qu’en toutes avenues du monde des sculptures de Giacometti regardent avec ravissement La Pietà. Je veux que dans les sièges des gouvernements dans tous un Christ de Velázquez avorte l’horreur. "Cette soif. Soif bénie qui avrile et reverdit l’âme. Vie prodigieuse qui étend le désir de la saisir. Toute. Et la trêve qui vient à pas retardés. Je veux que Fra Angelico s’échappe du Prado et que l’Annonciation parcoure le monde dans sa Lumière. Je veux que Redon et Mantegna, Uccello, Léonard et Monet soient trace. Phare. Et qu’ils proscrivent des bourreaux pour que Jamais Plus. " (« Semences » ) Comment la CIA a utilisé la culture comme arme contre la gauche au sortir de la seconde guerre mondiale by Oulala, reprise d'article de Jacqueline Kay du 29 mai 2006 (Ptb) "Afin d’assurer l’autocratie des Etats-Unis, il convenait de soutenir idéologiquement l’aide économique à une Europe exsangue, affamée et en ruines. C’est ce qui allait décider la CIA à tenter l’aventure avec les socialistes. Trois textes-clés témoignent de cette stratégie : The Vital Centre, d’Arthur Schlesinger, The God That Failed, d’Arthur Koestler et Nineteen Eighty-Four (1984) de George Orwell. Hormis ce trio, le philosophe Isaiah Berlin, l’homme politique Averell Harriman, le compositeur Nicholas Nabokov et l’écrivain et critique Melvin Lasky étaient les forces vives de tout ce projet...."(Ptb) Yukio Mishima : notre homofasciste préféré de James Keith Vincent (Multitudes, 21 juin 2003) "L’article commence avec la constatation que le romancier Yukio Mishima est plus connu à l’extérieur du Japon comme écrivain « gay » alors qu’à l’intérieur du Japon il est connu pour ses tendances droitières. La coahabitation inconfortable de l’ « homosexualité » et du « fascisme » dans la figure de Mishima est ensuite discutée comme le symptome d’une tendance plus générale du Japon d’après guerre : appréhender l’« homosexualité » et le « facisme » comme des exemples d’un investissement excessif dans les signes et dans la représentation en tant que tels. Le résultat est que les défenses psychiques contre le facisme empruntent souvent leur énergie à l’homophobie..." Visiter le passé pour mieux construire le présent par Leila (Oulala.net 29/5/06) « Toutes les cultures sont liées les unes aux autres ; nulle n’est unique et pure, toutes sont hybrides, hétérogènes, extraordinairement différenciées et non monolithiques. » Edward Saïd, Culture et impérialisme. "O Dieu, qu’est-ce que l’homme ?... (Tokhehah) Ô Dieu, qu’est-ce que l’homme ? Rien que chair et sang. Ses jours - l’ombre passant, L’errance, qu’il ignore... Soudain son heure vient : il se couche et s’endort. "Ô Dieu, qu’est-ce que l’homme ? Glaise sale et foulée, Infestée d’immondice, De tromperie, de vice, Bouton de fleur fané, Flétri sous le soleil ! Si tu lui rappelais Ses fautes enfouies, Ta colère et Ton ire Les pourrait-il souffrir ? Aussi grâce et pitié, car il n’est pas si fort... Soudain son heure vient : il se couche et s’endort..." Poème dédié à l’amour de Dieu de Moïse Ibn Ezra (1055-1135) Mon tête-à-tête avec Pasolini Mieux vaut être un ennemi du peuple qu’un ennemi de la réalité », une profonde évocation du poète insurgé, du romancier, du cinéaste, de l'amoureux, une réflexion sur la richesse et la puissance du désert... par Leila (Oulala.net 7/5/06) "Le plus grand affaire de ma vie a été ma mère [...] En 42, dans une ville qui résume si bien mon pays qu'on dirait presque un pays de songe, avec la grande poésie de [l'impoétique, le fourmillement des paysans et des petites industries, une indéniable aisance, bon vin, bonne table, personnes bien et mal élévées, un peu vulgaires mais sensibles, dans cette ville j'ai publié ma première plaquette en vers, sous le titre, alors conformiste, de "Poèmes à Casarsa", dédiée, par conformisme, à mon père, qui l'a reçu au Kenya, – il était prisonnier là-bas, victime ignare et passive de la guerre fasciste. Recevoir mon livre lui a fait, je le sais, un plaisir immense: nous étions grands ennemis, mais notre inimitié fasait partie du destin, se situait hors de nous. Et comme signe de notre haine, signe inéluctable, preuve pour une enquête scientifique qui ne se trompe pas, – qui ne peut se tromper, – ce livre à lui dédié était écrit en dialecte du Frioul ! Le dialecte de ma mère!" [Il Poeta delle Ceneri, édité par Enzo Siciliano, "Nuovi Argomenti" n. 67/68 (nouvelle série), Milano juillet/décembre 1980] extrait de Pier Paolo Pasolini - La vie et l'oeuvre - 1/4. Erri De Luca L'engagement politique par la vie ouvrière, les lettres et les langues de l'écrivain napolitain dans son intégralité ; une exceptionnelle lecture de Nathalie Bouyssès Paroles d'Erri De Luca, CRDP, Académie de Nice, Centre Franco-Italien, 2005. "Valeur J'attache de la valeur à toute forme de vie, à la neige, la fraise, la mouche. J'attache de la valeur au règne animal et à la république des étoiles. J'attache de la valeur au vin tant que dure le repas, au sourire involontaire, à la fatigue de celui qui ne s'est pas épargné, à deux vieux qui s'aiment. J'attache de la valeur à ce qui demain ne vaudra plus rien et à ce qui aujourd'hui vaut encore peu de chose. J'attache de la valeur à toutes les blessures. J'attache de la valeur è économiser l'eau, à réparer une paire de souliers, à se taire à temps, à accourir à un cri, à demander la permission avant de s'asseoir, à éprouver de la gratitude sans se souvenir de quoi. J'attache de la valeur à savoir où se trouve le nord dans une pièce, quel est le nom du vent en train de sécher la lessive.. J'attache de la valeur au voyage du vagabond, à la clôture de la moniale, à la patience du condamné quelle que soit sa faute. J'attache de la valeur à l'usage du verbe aimer et à l'hypothèse qu'il existe un créateur. Bien de ces valeurs, je ne les ai pas connues." Erri De Luca (traduction : Danièle Valin) Œuvre sur l'eau , Seghers 2004, extrait du site de Nathalie Bouyssès & Traduction littéraire de l'italien vers le français Nathalie Bouyssès Ecrits de prison by Leyla Zana "Ils ont appelé les hommes qui étaient avec nous, et nous avons entendu qu’ils les battaient de l’autre côté du mur; alors nous nous sommes révoltées, on a lancé des pierres. J’ai réussi à sortir, en bousculant un militaire. Il a dit que j’avais essayé de prendre son fusil. Finalement, j’ai été arrêtée, avec 83 autres personnes. J’ai été accusée d’avoir “incité le peuple à la révolte”. Les 7 jours de garde-à-vue ont été terribles. Ils ont employé tous les modes de torture. J’étais conduite les yeux bandés dans la salle d’interrogatoire; et là, les policiers, c’était des hommes, me déshabillaient: j’étais toute nue, et ils me frappaient. Ils m’ont frappée sur le nez, je suis tombée, j’ai perdu connaissance: alors ils m’ont arrosée avec un tuyau d’arrosage, avec de l’eau froide. Ils m’ont donné mes habits, et m’ont conduite dans ma cellule. Ils m’ont aussi torturée avec l’électricité. Où cela? sur le sexe. (Leyla Zana, qui jusqu’à maintenant avait raconté ses démêlés avec la police en souriant, est soudain livide, sur le point d’éclater en sanglots. Elle ne le raconte pas, mais ses geôliers l’ont aussi amenée, entièrement nue, devant des hommes qui étaient en prison avec elle. Pour la petite paysanne de Silvan, c’en était trop: ce jour-là, un sentiment nouveau est apparu en elle: une haine sans borne pour ceux qui lui infligeaient un tel traitement). Leyla Zana essuie quelques larmes, et dit: Aujourd’hui encore, j’en fais des cauchemars. En prison, je partageais la cellule des droits communs, j’étais avec des voleuses, des prostituées, des droguées. J’ai essayé de devenir leur amie. On faisait la cuisine ensemble, on mangeait ensemble, on dormait ensemble, la promiscuité était incroyable..." (extrait de TURQUIE: Leyla Zana, la seule femme député kurde... CHRIS KUTSCHERA 30 ANS DE REPORTAGE (Textes et Photos) The Silence of Writers On Nobel Prize Winner Harold Pinter by John Pilger "Dissident Voice" "In 1988, the English literary critic and novelist D.J. Taylor wrote a seminal piece entitled “When the Pen Sleeps.” He expanded this into a book A Vain Conceit, in which he wondered why the English novel so often denigrated into “drawing room twitter” and why the great issues of the day were shunned by writers, unlike their counterparts in, say, Latin America, who felt a responsibility to take on politics: the great themes of justice and injustice, wealth and poverty, war and peace. The notion of the writer working in splendid isolation was absurd. Where, he asked, were the George Orwells, the Upton Sinclairs, the John Steinbecks of the modern age? Twelve years on, Taylor was asking the same question: where was the English Gore Vidal and John Gregory Dunne: “intellectual heavyweights briskly at large in the political amphitheatre, while we end up with Lord [Jeffrey] Archer. In the post-modern, celebrity world of writing, prizes are allotted to those who compete for the emperor's threads; the politically unsafe need not apply. John Keanes, the chairman of the Orwell Prize for Political Writing, once defended the absence of great contemporary political writers among the Orwell prizewinners not by lamenting the fact and asking why, but by attacking those who referred back to “an imaginary golden past.” He wrote that those who “hanker” after this illusory past fail to appreciate writers making sense of “the collapse of the old left-right divide...” Art, Vérité et Politique by Harold Pinter, Conférence postée par les amis de Pinter, Pol d'Huyvetter, Mother Earth, Boycott Bush International "En 1958 j’ai écrit la chose suivante : « Il n’y a pas de distinctions tranchées entre ce qui est réel et ce qui est irréel, entre ce qui est vrai et ce qui est faux. Une chose n’est pas nécessairement vraie ou fausse ; elle peut être tout à la fois vraie et fausse. » Je crois que ces affirmations ont toujours un sens et s’appliquent toujours à l’exploration de la réalité à travers l’art. Donc, en tant qu’auteur, j’y souscris encore, mais en tant que citoyen je ne peux pas. En tant que citoyen, je dois demander : Qu’est-ce qui est vrai ? Qu’est-ce qui est faux ? La vérité au théâtre est à jamais insaisissable. Vous ne la trouvez jamais tout à fait, mais sa quête a quelque chose de compulsif.Cette quête est précisément ce qui commande votre effort. Cette quête est votre tâche. La plupart du temps vous tombez sur la vérité par hasard dans le noir, en entrant en collision avec elle, ou en entrevoyant simplement une image ou une forme qui semble correspondre à la vérité, souvent sans vous rendre compte que vous l’avez fait. Mais la réelle vérité, c’est qu’il n’y a jamais, en art dramatique, une et une seule vérité à découvrir. Il y en a beaucoup. Ces vérités se défient l’une l’autre, se dérobent l’une à l’autre, se reflètent, s’ignorent, se narguent, sont aveugles l’une à l’autre. Vous avez parfois le sentiment d’avoir trouvé dans votre main la vérité d’un moment, puis elle vous glisse entre les doigts et la voilà perdue..." HAROLD PINTER.ORG The Kurdish Human Rights Project 10th Anniversary Lecture given by Noam Chomsky at St Paul's Cathedral on 9th December 2002 Introduction by Harold Pinter "It's a great honour to introduce Noam Chomsky. In February of this year the publisher, Faith Tas was charged, under Article 8 of Turkey's anti terrorism law, with publishing 'propaganda against the indivisible unity of country, nation and the state republic of Turkey'. The book in question was "American Interventionism" by Noam Chomsky. Professor Chomsky flew to Istanbul and petitioned the court to be named as co-defendant and to be tried along side Mr Tas. The prosecutor dropped the charges and Mr Tas was acquitted. This was a remarkable thing for a man to do and only a remarkable man could have done it. Professor Chomsky has never ceased to call attention to the persecution of the Kurdish people in Turkey, a systematic persecution generally and disgracefully ignored by the western media. He also reminds us that Turkish repression of the civil rights of the Kurdish people has always been fully supported and subsidised by the United States and that the arms trade between Britain and Turkey flourishes. Noam Chomsky is the leading critical voice against the criminal regime now running the United States, a regime which is in fact a dangerous monster out of control. But he will not be bullied. He will not be intimidated. He is a fearless, formidable, totally independent voice. He does something which is really quite simple but highly unusual. He tells the truth." Harold Pinter The Samuel Beckett on-line resources and papers on Beckett The Concept of Time and Space in Beckett's Dramas Happy Days and Waiting for Godot Dong-Ho Sohn, Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, Seoul, Korea "Happy Days opens on a barren outdoor setting in which a woman around fifty, Winnie, is found embedded up to above her waist in a mound of earth. There is another character around sixty, Willie, who is lying asleep on the ground, hidden by Winnie's mound, to her right and rear. Willie is hardly visible to the audience throughout the play except for a few times, although constantly addressed by Winnie in her monologue. The dramatist calls for a "maximum of simplicity and symmetry" in the set, and a "very pompier trompe-l'oeil backcloth to represent unbroken plain and sky receding to meet in far distance" to indicate the absence of any trace of human society in the protagonist's world. For the spectators who are used to the realistic stage, or to the stage on which events occur in the physical world , the stage of Happy Days is something of a shock, for they fail to find in the set any resemblance to the drama they have known. Above all, Beckett does not put his action in a historical setting. Traditionally, drama creates a world with reference to objective reality. An important part of dramatic performance is to present the spectators with some event they can recognize and identify in connection with the practical aspects of life. Each time they see a performance, they find themselves thrown into a new world which is a mixture of the familiar and the strange and unknown. The familiar is the threshold through which they venture into the strange and unknown. The ratio of the familiar is the highest in the drama of mimetic objective realism, whereas it is low in the drama portraying the phenomena occurring in the unconscious. Beckett depicts life as strange, mysterious, and beyond rational explanation...." “There is no escape from the hours and the days.” : The ‘goings-on’ of Samuel Beckett /An essay by David Parfitt/ "Beckett has been interpreted, misinterpreted and mythologised by critics since Waiting for Godot was first performed in 1953. At the time of this production, opinion of it was divided. Some slated [criticized] it; some applauded it. No one understood it. Since then each new production has attracted attention and Godot has become a classic of the stage over which, in the face of a silent author, literary critics never tire of speculating. I wonder why that is. Is it simply because Beckett was the ‘last modernist’, or because Waiting for Godot is the benchmark work in Absurdist theatre? Perhaps this interest is due to the esoteric lure of Beckett’s literature and its apparent lack of meaning? No. I propose that it is much more than this. Beckett’s enduring popularity with all sorts of people lies more in its style than in its literary content. An enigmatic style and a wish on the author’s part to defy classification and simplistic interpretation creates something not easily digested by readers intent on reaching some sort of definite conclusion or arriving at an overall, tangible meaning which they can firmly grasp. We are led by many critics to believe that although much of his work remains somewhat of a mystery, there are certain ‘accepted’ Beckettian theories and suppositions to which the uninitiated lay reader must adhere. This can be very off-putting to students and others approaching Beckett for the first time who, not surprisingly, are under the distinct impression that his output is so abstract, erudite and metaphysical that he must be avoided at all costs. Without wishing to appear iconoclastic, I feel that people’s hesitancy in reading Samuel Beckett is the result of officious critics, more concerned with being perceived as scholarly than actually contributing anything of scholastic value: [During the second New York production of Waiting for Godot]... the theater was turned into a seminar room after the final curtain. A panel of ‘experts’ — a psychoanalyst, an actor, an English professor, and so on — sat on-stage and conducted a dialogue with those in the auditorium... the most effective contribution was made by a member of the audience who asked the panel the rhetorical question, “Isn’t Waiting for Godot a sort of living Rorschach [ink-blot] test?” He was clapped and cheered by most of those present, who clearly felt as I still do that most interpretations of that play — indeed of Samuel Beckett’s work as a whole — reveal more about the psyches of the people who offer them than about the work itself or the psyche of the author..." Beckett and Brecht : Keeping the Endgameat a DistanceJodi Hatzenbeller "Irish playwright Samuel Beckett is often classified amongst Absurdist Theatre contemporaries Jean-Paul Sartre, Albert Camus, Jean Genet, and Eugene Ionesco (Brockett 392-395). However, Endgame, Beckett’s second play, relates more closely to the theatrical ideology of German playwright Bertolt Brecht, father of epic theatre and the alienation effect. Through the use of formal stage conventions, theatrical terminology, and allusions to Shakespearean texts within Endgame, Beckett employs Brecht’s alienation concept, distancing the audience empathetically from players of the game and instead focusing attention upon the game itself. Bertolt Brecht, whose final work, Galileo, was last revised three years before Beckett published Endgame, was personally and professionally influenced by Marxist theory and the political events which plagued the middle of this century. According to drama anthologist Oscar G. Brockett, Brecht asserted that theatre must do more than simply entertain the passive spectator; theatre must recognize and incite change. Brecht suggested a system of "productive participation, in which the spectator actively judges and applies what he sees on stage to conditions outside the theatre" (365-366). Brecht’s alienation effect was a direct means of evoking this participation—the audience is emotionally distanced from characters to allow objective observation. "The audience should never be allowed to confuse what it sees on the stage with reality. Rather the play must always be thought of as a comment upon life— something to be watched and judged critically" (Brockett 366). Samuel Beckett distances the audience from his comment on life through constant reminders that his staged play is merely a staged play. Through the dialogue of Hamm, Beckett directly implores the audience to be objective onlookers to the absurd tale of Endgame. Hamm ponders: "Imagine if a rational being came back to earth, wouldn’t he be liable to get ideas into his head if he observed us long enough?" The stage directions prescribe he continue in the "voice of rational being." "Ah, good, now I see what it is, yes, now I understand what they’re at" (Beckett 33). The audience is called to step away from the stage, to recognize the emotion-blocking proscenium between themselves and the text’s four characters. The audience must realize that it is from another time and place—reality. The reality proscenium is enforced through theatrical references and techniques throughout the play..." James Joyce : the brazen head “A little story of a day” "Published in 1922, Ulysses is a remarkably ambitious novel, a labyrinthine work of great humor and technical accomplishment; once denounced as obscene, occasionally accused of being unreadable, and frequently acclaimed as the greatest book of the twentieth century. Its plot is deceptively easy to summarize: during the course of a single day, three main characters wake up, have various encounters in Dublin, and drift off to sleep eighteen hours later. The youngest of the three is the anxious writer Stephen Dedalus, the semi-autobiographical intellectual from A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. Recently returned to Ireland from his self-imposed exile in Paris, Stephen enters the book shortly after the death of his mother. Next is the indomitable Leopold Bloom; a middle-aged advertising canvasser and non-practicing Jew, the good-natured “Poldy” has never quite fit in with his Catholic countrymen. Finally there’s Bloom’s earthy wife Molly, a voluptuous singer who is planning an afternoon of adultery with her music director. The day in question is Thursday, June 16, 1904 – special to Joyce because it was the day that Nora Barnacle, his future wife, made her fondness clear to him. (At Sandymount Beach. When they were alone. A “fondness” very, ah, handily clarified.) Although Ulysses takes place on a single day, as Bloom remarks, it is “an unusually fatiguing day, a chapter of accidents,” and includes a funeral, a birth, an episode of adultery, and a drunken spree through the red light district. We begin with Stephen. After awakening by the seaside, Stephen discovers that he doesn’t much like his roommates – a patronizing Englishman named Haines and an irreverent wit named Buck Mulligan – and as the day goes on, it becomes clear that he doesn’t much like himself, either; nor his teaching position, associates, friends, family, country, and religion. Throughout the day he gets in one argument after another, from lofty debates about art and literature to self-loathing disputes with his own conscience..." Finnegans Wake "After Ulysses, Joyce spend nearly the remainder of his life working on his final masterpiece, a book he kept veiled in secrecy, referring to it only as “Work In Progress.” As the years wore on, a few installments were published periodically in various literary magazines, and the results both excited and alarmed his friends and supporters. Something very weird was going on in Joyce’s brain, and it was clear that his next book would be as far away from Ulysses as that epic novel was from Portrait. In that, at least, they were not disappointed. Purely in terms of literary technique, Finnegans Wake is probably the most astonishing – and controversial – book ever written. Completed in 1939 after seventeen years of labor, it was received with a mix of reactions ranging from bafflement to delight to open hostility. Many critics initially dismissed it as a waste of paper, a tangled web of nonsense and gibberish without plot, without content, without meaning. More than a few even questioned Joyce’s very sanity! And yet, today, whole careers have been dedicated to studying Finnegans Wake, and its many adherents past and present approach it with something close to awe. Fans of the Wake have called the book an unequaled masterpiece, a cultural artifact, a unique event, a cosmic joke; it has even half-jokingly been referred to as a near-sentient artificial intelligence. There is some mystical quality to Finnegans Wake that remains suspended between the sublimity of poetry and the mystery of religion – even quotations taken from its pages are cited in a Biblical fashion. So, then – what’s the big deal? Well . . . glad you asked. But, describing Finnegans Wake is a difficult assignment – one must work up to it in stages, in spirals, each pass revealing more of what’s really going on. In order to do this, I find it easiest to frame the discussion as a kind of FAQ file. (Finnegans Ache Quailified?) After laying down a little groundwork, I’ll describe the unique narrative and language of Finnegans Wake, then I’ll attempt to summarize its “plot” and structure. While this might seem a bit backwards, please bear with me. I guarantee that by the end, you’ll either rush out to buy the book, or you’ll be hiding under your bed clutching a bottle of aspirin..." Internet Shakespeare Edition Shakespeare and the classical tradition by John V.Velz Récits et nouvelles, les critiques littéraires de Didier Daeninckx by Amnistia.net Babel la secte by Max Biro Clément Harari by C. Harari & Max Biro Roman biographique de Clément Harari by Max Biro et Clément Harari Literature of captivity : The Book of Prison, interview with Naser Mohajer (Iran-Bulletin) "Ardeshir Mehrdad: What was your motive for compiling the anthology entitled The Book of Prison . Nasser Mohajer: First and foremost, to record what we have lived through. I think as Iranian intellectuals that we have to record all corners of this experience whenever we can, and to record what happened to us over the last two decades as a people. This in itself is an important task. When it comes to prisons, well it is such a crucial experience. So little has been written on this important experience. A vital task for those who challenge despotism is to fight against forgetfulness. Despotism feeds on forgetfulness. A cornerstone of resistance is to resist forgetting which motivated us to record the defiance of the tens of thousands, nay hundreds of thousands who stood face to face with the Islamic Republic and resisted. The prison books are a contribution to the struggle against collective amnesia. Ardeshir Mehrdad: It seems that increasing attention is being paid over the last few years to what took place inside the prisons of the Islamic Republic. A number of ex-prisoners have written and published their memoirs. A new branch of literature is apparently taking its place alongside the other branches of the literature of our country. What do you think? Nasser Mohajer: I agree. We now have a prison literature which has appeared in the last ten to twelve years. Incidentally, it is not the first time we, as a people, have faced despotism. The struggle against tyranny for freedom, for progress, for social justice, for modernism has been a constant feature of contemporary Iranian history. In the previous periods, both under Reza Shah and his son Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, of the numerous political prisoners, only a handful published their memoirs or reflected on the experience. Under the present system many political prisoners once released have written about it. Of course it will take time. It is not easy to forego such a trauma and immediately live through it all over again by recounting it. It took more than ten years before we could compile the first collection of prison memoirs. But, as a few stepped forwards and broke the taboo, the door opened to others. It was not an easy escapade. You have yourself been a political prisoner. This is especially true under this regime. Its penitentiary system follows a different logic from other despotic prison systems. Had this path not been paved, we could not have embarked on this anthology. Those early works allowed us to talk to others, whom we knew, had painful memories weighing heavily on their chests. But for a variety of reasons it was hard for them to articulate these pains. We owe this to Osias, Fazels, P. Alizadeh, M Rahas and all others who pioneered this path..." Writing out terror by Hammed Shahidian "It can kill a man. Wallace Stevens, “Poetry is a Destructive Force” “Thanks for the e-mail about Mokhtari’s execution. It looks like Pouyandeh is also dead.” I receive this short message first thing in the morning. We were hoping Pouyandeh was only missing. We were hoping, though we knew deep down that it would turn out otherwise. We knew Pouyandeh would be yet another writer whose body would be found somewhere in the morgue of the Islamic Republic of Iran. And who knows how many others? Who knows how many more? Prominent in my joyous memories dating back to childhood are memories of written words. All such recollections, though, are paradoxically dabbed in blood. Down my mind’s dark alleys, far back as I can go, I find fallen authors. Critical and uncompromising. Deemed “dangerous,” censored, imprisoned, executed. Such a pleasant enlivening experience writing, yet so many of my favorite writers—my teachers of the past and still teachers as well as comrades of the present—had to give their lives for it. I am barely nine when I first encounter such authors. Samad Behrangi, social critic and author of children’s stories with strong political undertones, presumed to have been drowned in the northern river Aras. That same year, 1968, a teacher in our town is imprisoned, who after his release writes a children’s storybook. I read, though I am no longer a child. My first face-to-face meeting with an author—and a former political prisoner… In school, I read Ali Akbar Dihkhoda’s classic “Remember the extinct candle, remember.” Dihkhoda sings of Mirza Jahangir Khan of Shiraz, co-editor of a progressive weekly, strangled by order of a Qajar Shah back in 1908. I am appalled—but learn in whispers from teachers and friends that throughout our history, many authors have suffered Jahangir Khan’s fate. Many others. And then many more..." The pen and the Islamic Republic by Mansur Khaksar "A chronicle of resistancePerhaps on a historic perspective there was never a moment when the pen could be said to have begun its confrontation with despotic power. It is certainly beyond my abilities to define this moment. We could perhaps agree that the seed of this conflict was planted the moment the ruling powers stood against freedom to think, to express and to disseminate its fruits; when they tried to bring the pen, a versatile and influential of the expressive means for enlightening, under their control and monopoly. The pen reacts with greater swiftness and directness than other art forms to rulers who succumbs to corruption and distance themselves from people and independent thought and block the path for society’s bloom. The pen’s revelations echo society’s most secret loathing and protests. This is a general rule to which Iranian society is no stranger. From the Constitutional Revolution of 1905 onwards Iranian writers and intellectuals have embraced countless dangers by rising against the restrictions imposed from above. Such was the intensity of their desire to secure the instruments of freedom and democracy. The most telling document, as true today as when written nearly a century ago, is the shining article by Jahangir Shirazi. He was a pioneer, as well as one of the victims, of the movement for democracy in the Constitutional Revolution. Writing in Sur-e Esrafil, published contemporaneous with the victory of the revolution, it was directed at widening the meaning of justice-seeking: " A pen that god has sworn on, cannot be enslaved to the brandings and chains of a despotic office. God never appointed an angel to scrutinise the acts of man before they took place, let alone delegate it to devils" he remonstrated at the rulers and the champions of moral censorship..." Prison letters by Majid Nafisi "A Look in the Correspondence of an Iranian Political Prisoner About the Author Majid Naficy was born in Iran in 1953. His first collection of poems in Persian, called In the Tiger’s Skin, was published in 1969. One year later his book of literary criticism, Poetry as a Structure, appeared. And in 1971 he wrote a children’s book, The Secret of Words, which won a national award in Iran. In the seventies, Majid was politically active against the Shah’s regime. However, after the 1979 revolution, the new regime began to suppress the oppositions, and many people, including his first wife, Ezzat Taba’eyan and brother Sa’id, were executed. He fled Iran in 1983 and spent a year and a half in Turkey and France. Majid then settled in Los Angeles where he lives with his son, Azad. He has since published three collections of poems, After the Silence, Sorrow of the Border, and Poems of Venice, as well as a book of essays called In Search if Joy: A Critique of Male-Dominated, Death-Oriented Culture in Iran, all in Persian. He holds his doctorate in Near Eastern Languages and Cultures from the University of California at Los Angeles. Majid is currently a co-editor of Daftarha-ye Shanbeh, a Persian literary journal published in Los Angeles. Majid’s doctoral dissertations, Modernism and Ideology in Persian Literature: A Return to Nature in Poetry of Nima Yushij was published by University Press of America, Inc. In October 1997..." Ahmad Shamlu : Master poet of Liberty by Parvaneh Soltani "Dry path, all through life Having been born with a cry In a hatred Turning on itself. Thus was the Great absence. Thus was The story of the ruin. If only freedom Could sing a song Small, smaller even ... Than the throat of a bird..." Shamlu a great poet by Siagzar Berelian "Shamlu was a founder of the Iranian Writers Association. It the thirty intervening years he has not ceased defending its ideals. As he put it to an interviewer “The Iranian Writers Association is alive because its thought is alive in each and every one of us. That means every one of us cultural workers who remains true to its shining ideals is individually an association”. Numerous are those from this tribe of the pen who in this republic of terror gave their life in defence of the pen and its honour: Hossein Eghdami, Piruz Davani, Hamid Haji-Zadeh, Ghaffar Hosseini, Mohammad Mokhtari, Ahmad Miralai’, Mohammad-Ja’far Puyandeh, Hamid Rezvan, Said Soltanpur, Saidi Sirjani, Majid Sharif, Ahmand Taffazoli, Ebrahim Zalzadeh..." In memoriam of Ahmad Shamlu : poet, journalist, translator by Esmail Khoi' "Greetings and welcome to the gathering honouring Iran’s great and unique poet of our time. While my heart bleeds for the death of one of the most cherished friends of my entire life, it is a privilege to talk on the work of this unique figure in Iranian contemporary culture. I cannot cover even a fraction of this in the limited time allotted to me. But we will be organising a seminar shortly where I, alongside other friends, will examine the manifold aspects of Shamlu’s creativity. Ahmad Shamlu was a multi-faceted figure, in that he worked in a number of cultural fields simultaneously. The product of some of these fields are so glorious and distinguished that were a person to accomplish just one of them would without doubt earn them a place as a leading light in contemporary Iranian culture. Shamlu worked in film, studied the classic poets, expanded the culture of poetry among the people, wrote children’s literature, and was active in journalism and lexicography. And he did great work, though his masterwork was in poetry. What will keep Shamlu immortal as Shamlu is without doubt, and above everything, his poetry..." Shamlu's poetic world by Mansur Khaksar "The transformation of Farsi poetry brought about by Nima Youshij, untying it feet from the fetters of the prosodic measures, was a turning point in the long tradition of our poetry. It opened a huge vista in the perception and thinking of the poets that came after him. Nima offered a different understandings of the principles of classical poetry. His artistry was not confined to removing the need for a fixed length hemistich and dispensing with the tradition of rhyming. Above, and overseeing these changes, and going beyond altering the formation of the old poetry, he was focusing on a broader structure and function based on a more contemporary understanding of human and social existence. His aim in renovating poetry was to commit it to a natural identity and also to achieve a modern discipline in the mind and linguistic performence of the poet..." |
Nazim
Hikmet by C.Kan & J.Berger (Fr) « Je suis né
en 1902. Je ne suis jamais revenu sur le lieu de ma naissance. Je n'aime
pas me retourner » | |
Nouvelles, histoires
courtes | ||
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