I quite like the cover of La grande ourse, a play by Penda Diouf about a mother who turns into a she-bear following a police visit and subsequent trial for dropping a sweet wrapper in the street. This is the 2nd play by her I've read this week, the 1st one being Pistes... Suivi de Sutures, about among other things, her solo travels in Namibia. I've yet to see them on stage, though.
A short but hard-hitting essay in prose poetry enjoining us to welcome migrants and recognize our common humanity 👏 👏
Seemed apt given the events at Lampedusa and the pope's visit in Marseilles.
I liked this novella. It describes the ordeals faced by Eritrean ascaris (African conscripts in the Italian colonial army) send to war against Libyan independence fighters in the 1920s. It also questions their willingness to side with the oppressor against the oppressed. I can see however that some readers might not find it to their tastes because 1) the translator is a non-native speaker of English & 2) it's all tell and no show.
@Liz_M
I found The Conscript on scribd. It is about an Eritrean conscript fighting on the Italian side in Libya during the Italo-Senussi war, when both #Eritrea and #Libya were part of the Italian colonial empire (although Libya was trying very hard not to be!) Originally written in Tingrinya in 1927 by Gebreyesus Hailu, an Eritrean author, making it an early African novel, and one not written in a colonial language.
About to start Maternités en exil : mettre des enfants au monde et les faire grandir en situation transculturelle (unfortunately not in the database). It translates as Maternities in exile : giving birth and raising children in transcultural situations), a collection of academic articles edited by Marie Rose Moro, a child psychiatrist and academic I have a lot of time for.
About halfway-through and stalling a bit. This novel is written from the POV of a Russian geologist working for the oil industry. He comes back to #Azerbaijan where he was born and bred when it was part of the USSR. The near-total absence of Azeri characters and the lack of anything positive about Azeris and Muslims are glaring.
The book was interesting and entertaining, but Pastoureau's voice is hard to interpret sometimes. I think his humour might be too dry for the written word. Case in point his lines on purple. He hates purple. And goes on to say that most people do too and that this colour is the least often favourited in polls. That's got to be a joke ? I'm pretty sure it is young girls' second-favourite colour after pink. And my favourite 😁 😇
The title might be taken the wrong way, so it's important to explain that this is not a racist pamphlet. It's a 1922 #Swiss novella about a feud between a
Valaisan, French-speaking village and a Bernese, German-speaking one. Very short but very unsettling. I wanted to finish it quickly (too stressful!), but couldn't: the writing is too dense and has to be parsed carefully.
Picture is a still from the 1937 film, called The Kidnapping in English.
Started historian Michel Pastoureau's colour-based memoir. Very readable!
Picture is a personal photo of the impressive 18th-century wool skein collection in the Manufacture Royale Saint Jean in Aubusson.
I've finished the adventures of Er-Töshtük (ie, Manly Chest, as he was named after he outgrew the birth name Snotty Nose), on the Steppes of Central Asia and the underground world. He is very strong and courageous, but a bit dim. Thankfully, he gets a lot of help from his wives, friends, a winged horse, a fairy who's in love with him, a bear, a giant female eagle, etc. 😁 and defeats all his enemies.
#WondrousWednesday @Eggs
Thank you @eeclayton
1) Read, eat seasonal fruit (figs, plums, grapes, apples, pears, blackberries, even the last raspberries and strawberries from late-flowering plants...), walk in nature
2) Tired!
3) The tagged book is a Kyrgyz epic describing the adventures of a giant, the 9th son of a local chief, above and under-ground. There are talking, flying horses, witches, ogres... Fantastic!
Reading a Kyrgyz epic oral poem about the adventures of Er-Tüshtük. It was translated in the 60s thanks to a Unesco scheme. And it turns out Kyrgyzstan issued stamps inspired by it in 2017, but I couldn't find a good-quality photo of them, so instead, here's a Kyrgyz landscape from Wikipedia! I liked the mix of timeless pastoralism, electricity pylones and DIY soccer goals 😄
Innu/Montagnais oral history in French and in Innu (full title: Un monde autour de moi : témoignage d'une Montagnaise - Uikut shika tishun : Ilnushkueu utipatshimun)
Elder Anne-Marie Siméon describes her life as a nomadic Innu hunter around Lac Saint-Jean. A very niche 1997 book found in a local Little Library, in France. Surprisingly, it was in the database 😁
Pictured next to blueberries, the only non-animal-based foodstuff in the whole book!
That book packs a punch! I'll need some time to recover.
Photo of Las Nereidas by Argentine female sculptor Lola Mora (1866-1936), from Wikipedia
Finally made some gallo pinto, as mentioned in this book's first story 😁
I used the recipe in https://costa-rica-guide.com/travel/food/gallo-pinto-recipe-costa-rica/ although unfortunately, I had to substitute salsa Lizano for Worcester sauce
#FoodandLit #CostaRica
@Catsandbooks @Texreader
Hojoki, also titled The 10 Foot Square Hut, is a Japanese poetic work by 12/13th-century author Kamo no Chomei. It describes the string of disasters (typhoon, famine, epidemic, earthquake) witnessed by the author, and his retreat into smaller and smaller dwellings, in the countryside, away from The World.
The work itself is short and moving; the introduction (probably written by the translators) is engaging and useful.
It looks like Bian Rongda is having a midlife crisis and feels he's never been able to make his own decisions concerning his life, from his earliest childhood with an overbearing, angry father, to the present-day where he feels emasculated by his wife, his boss and modern China. Chi Li, a female writer from Wuhan, skillfully conveys her character's subjectivity. Depressing but good.
#China #FoodandLit
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My plans for #FoodandLit in September: read Un homme bien sous tous rapports, a novel by Chi Li (this author's name is perfect for Food and Lit!), and explore some of the recipes in China (a doorstop about Chinese food) and Sichuan Cookery.
#China @Catsandbooks @Texreader
A very engaging non-fiction about the colonisation by the French of what is now #Senegal, #Guinea and #Mali, and its ramifications in modern-day France and Senegal, centered around the mythical sabre of El Hadj Oumar Tall, looted along with his treasure and library in 1890, at the sack of Ségou by the French colonial army.
The sabre (picture from https://chroniques.sn) was “lent back“ by France to the musée des civilisations noires in Dakar
In the 60s, a young Creusois man from a poor background leaves for Paris to study dentristry (I wish the book kept out of people's rotten mouths!) & falls in with an Ancient Greek theatre company. They try to retrace Ulysses's steps in Ithaca one summer, then decide to build a ship and sail round the world on it. For our young man, that means going back to #Creuse to work as a dentist to earn money to pay for the boat he builds in his barn.
Reading a rather literary novel set in modern-day Egypt and Islamic Golden Age Basra (Iraq), the Venice of the Middle-East. Fascinating and enlightening, although it is quite clear a reader with more cultural/historical/literary knowledge than I have would get a lot more out of it!
Photo from the Unesco website
1. Generally, I prefer watching from the comfort of my home. I used to go a couple of times per month, but I lost the habit since covid lockdown.
2. Crochet, cooking, doodling, colouring...
3. I like to cook, and I eat homemade food at home most of the time, but I do enjoy going to restaurants now and then, especially if they have dishes I can't make myself, and the music's not loud or annoying. Or we order food in 😁
#wondrouswednesday @eggs
Inhaling La puissance des mères (The power of mothers), a non-fiction about the author's and other's experience of inequalities in the school system and in society in general, how racism, misogyny and classism impact the children from postcolonial immigration families, how their mothers are invisibilised and infantilised, but also how they are actors, organise and get things done, despite institutional and individual biases. It packs a punch!
Reading Prudence Hautechaume, a rather cruel short story collection about various inhabitants of Chaminadour - a fictional stand-in for Guéret in Creuse (France). I went on Google Map and found a plausible location for Prudence's shop and flat with a balcony overlooking the square 😁 (the blue and ocre house). Now, I'll just have to imagine it in the twenties!
Piments zoizos (bird's eye chilies in Reunion Island Creole) tells the story of a Reunion Island boy sent to a children's home in mainland France in the 60s, like many other children/teens from deprived families, orphans and/or children deemed “at risk“. And also teenagers found to have intellectual potential, with the - typically unfulfilled - promise of schooling. The story is interspersed with infodumps in the style of newspaper articles.
I read the collection's 2nd tale (The Black Girl and the Blond Girl - think Cinderella in #CostaRica with an ugly stepsister plainly described as Black) to the end, hoping for some kind of redeeming twist, but there was none. Carmen Lyra, why the colorism? So much internalised self-hate from an Afrodescendant writer. And so damaging to young readers!
#FoodandLit
@Catsandbooks @Texreader
Coffee + book on the balcony before temperatures rise and I have to lower the shutters and close all windows to try and keep the flat somewhat cool inside...
The red horse tells the story of Boris, an Aegean Macedonian soldier, bundled off with his companions to the USSR in the 40s. I was unaware of that bit of European history, or indeed, the existence of the ethnic groups mentioned in the book.
I'll have to check out the 1981 Yugoslavian film
It's Diana Wynne's Jones birthday today, and therefore the perfect excuse for posting another photo of a Miyazaki tapestry!
Reading The History of a mountain and The (His?)Story of a stream by famous 19th-century geographer (also anarchist, naturist and vegetarian) Elisée Reclus. Enjoying his finely-observed descriptions.
Photo taken if front of the Dordogne river as it meanders through the Monts d'Auvergne mountain/volcano range, neither of which are mentioned in those two works, but it'll have to do!
So, I am trying to read books set in the #Creuse département in France this year, and am having a tough time finding titles that appeal AND are available. I've had to branch out to books in genres that I don't particularly like, but with themes I am interested in (in this case, the Enfants de la Creuse - Reunion Island children taken from their birth families under false pretenses to be fostered - and sometimes exploited - in mainland France).
I was slightly underwhelmed by this graphic novel about a man researching his family history, and in particular, the love triangle between his grandmother, grandfather and great-uncle.
#FoodandLit #CostaRica
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A tapestry inspired by Le hibou, a poem from Le Bestiaire, ou Cortège d‘Orphée (1911) by Guillaume Apollinaire - photo taken at the René Perrot exhibition in Aubusson
Mon pauvre cœur est un hibou
Qu‘on cloue, qu‘on décloue, qu‘on recloue.
De sang, d‘ardeur, il est à bout.
Tous ceux qui m‘aiment, je les loue.
English translation below
More Aubusson goodness! I thought I'd only post photos of tapestries with a bookish theme, but since it looks like people enjoyed my previous posts, and Spirited Away is in the database here we go!
A huge tapestry of Howl's Moving Castle hanging in the lobby of the Cité internationale de la tapisserie in Aubusson. There are half a dozen Miyazaki tapestries on show at the moment.
And finally, Smaug on an Aubusson tapestry.
A tapestry copied from Tolkien's own art
Here's a photo I took of the huge map of Middle-Earth done in tapestry that's hanging in the Cité internationale de la tapisserie in Aubusson (France).
See https://www.cite-tapisserie.fr/en
Right author, wrong title. Reading La fugue des genêts by a young local poet whilst waiting for the tapestry museum to open in Aubusson.
Jean (de) Castel is Christine de Pizan's son. I am reading Le pin (The pine tree), the poem he dedicated to his wife. There is a romantic and a political reading. It was inspired by the Roman de la Rose but is also a commentary on the 100-year war.
The verses are in Middle French, with no translation, but they're broadly understandable.
Picture is a miniature of Christine and her son
I am really enjoying this long poem in 100 ballads and 1 lai, describing the evolution of the relationship between a lady and her lover, clearly inspired by the Roman de la rose, but without the misogyny, digressions and non-PG content! The Middle French verses are a joy: melodious, and not too difficult to understand for this contemporary reader.
Miniature of Christine de Pizan writing from Wikipedia
3 days until August and #CostaRica. I am starting early with 7 folktales from Carmen Lyra, a renowned (her face is on banknotes) author and Montessori educator. Wish me luck: it's in the original Spanish and I am far from fluent. 1st page, and food is mentioned: oregano-flavoured rice omelette and “gallito de frijoles“, which I am guessing is rice and beans.
#FoodandLit
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I had to share this illustration from a 1982 article about feminism and anarchism in the Edwardian era https://femenrev.persee.fr/doc/enfac_0152-5611_1982_num_12_1_1189
This is a contraceptive device: basically a pompom made with silk threads that you shove up your vagina to act as a barrier to sperm. Wash, dry and comb between uses. It is supposed to be gentler on vaginal tissues than pessaries. I'd really like to know how effective it is!
L'essai (The experiment) is a graphic work about the anarchist commune created by Honoré Henry in 1903 in the French Ardenne, close to the Belgian border. I like the art, but I am more ambivalent about the cliché-laden content. I am also disappointed that there aren't more women in the illustrations, seeing as the pictures of the time showed as many men as women. 💕 for the use of Ardennais dialect on the double page in the picture.
Tu n'es pas obligée (You don't have to) is a progressive, sex-positive, diversity-friendly sex-education book aimed at teenage girls. I am not the target, nor is anyone close to me. But I was curious. It was written by feminist activist & documentary filmmaker Ovidie. The tone is chummy and slightly bossy, which I am finding irritating. That's subjective, though, and as long as some girls find the advice useful and reassuring, that's what counts!
I've just finished Miklós Radnóti's selected poems, some of which were found in his pocket when his body was exhumed from the mass grave into which he and other Jewish slave laborers were buried after their murder in 1944.
They were competently translated (I read them in French) and very moving.
On a lighter note, don't you think he looks a bit like Andy Samberg?
#FoodandLit
@Catsandbooks @Texreader
⬇
I found the English translation of La anarquía explicada a los niños, a leaflet originally published in 1931, online. I think it would leave most children none the wiser, unless they'd already been taught the concepts outlined in it.
TLDR;
Reject 1) militarism 2) religion 3) capitalism.
Life-long education is key.
Give help to all that need it, never exploit people or animals, farm the land, study, love, work with dignity, study, look for beauty.
Here's my choice for July's #Hungary read: a poetry collection by Miklós Radnóti, a celebrated Hungarian poet, murdered by the SS in 1944.
On the food side, I don't know what I'm going to cook yet, but here's the Gundel cookbook, picked up when we stayed in Budapest for a week a few years ago :-) We had a nice lunch at Gundel's and learned how to make goulash in a restaurant inside a market 😋
#FoodandLit
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