sábado, octubre 30, 2010

el consuelo de casa, dice Figueroa

Thus Caribbean intellectuals can hardly have the consolation of a house that once was and is now lost; there is indeed nostalgia, but for a home that they never had, a home that colonialism made a priori impossible. Arguably, then, not being at home in that home that they also long for is not simply a matter of escapism for them, nor is it simply an assumed ethical duty (which is what Said celebrates in Adorno's phrase). It is an assumed duty that is also an imposed point of departure; thus, that homelessness at home opens a horizon of possibilities and limitations that need not be (only) celebrated, but also endured.
Not at home in one's home: Caribbean self-fashiong in the poetry of Luis Palés Matos, Aimé Césaire, and Derek Walcott, Víctor Figueroa (Wayne State University)

domingo, octubre 24, 2010

nothing is all he has, dice el individuo laferrière

All you need is a good Remington, no cash and no publisher to believe that the book you're composing with your gut feelings is the masterpiece that will get you out of your hole. Unfortunately, it never works that way. It takes as much guts to do a good book as a bad one. When you have nothing, you can always hope for genius. But genius has refined tastes. It doesn't like the dispossessed. And nothing is all I've got. I'll never make it out of here with a so-so manuscript.
I write by day.
And dream by night.
How to make love to a negro without getting tired, Dany Laferrière