Crafted Memories

Georges Perec (1936. – 1982.) zasigurno je jedan od najznačajnijih francuskih romanopisaca druge polovice 20. stoljeća. Godine 1967. postao je član Oulipo-a (OUvroir de LIttérature POtentielle, hrv. Radionica potencijalne književnosti), književne skupine koja je osnovana 1960. godine, u razdoblju koje je u povijesti francuskoga romana obilježeno intenzivnim traganjima za novim književnim formama i načinima izraza. Osnivači skupine, koja je i danas aktivna, bili su Raymond Queneau i François Le Lionnais, a neki od njezinih članova Italo Calvino, Noël Arnaud, Jacques Bens, Ross Chambers, Hervé Le Tellier, Jacques Roubaud, François Le Lionnais, Michele Metail itd. Oulipovci se zanimaju posebice za formalne aspekte književnih tekstova te stvaraju poštujući samonametnuta rigorozna pravila. Susret s Oulipom presudno je utjecao na djelovanje Georgesa Pereca, koji se danas drži jednim od najvećih inovatora na području književnosti. U svom prvom romanu Stvari (1965.) opisuje svakodnevicu mladog...

Peter Ackroyd’s novels explore encounters with the past in the present of literary creation. Through the figure of the ghost, the usual borders between past and present are crossed as elements or characters from the past resurface in the present. This analysis explores the ways in which Ackroyd’s works engage with the past in three singular life narratives. It hovers around two main steps that highlight conversations with the past: the first one considers the textual instances of communication, while the second addresses diegetic components. Through ‘transtextuality,’ past words and texts are used again in the novels, emphasizing how the ghost of the English canon pervades and invades Ackroyd’s works. Through the apparitions of spirits, along with the introduction of all-absorbing places, objects, or bodies of communication, spectral manifestations keep resurfacing in the novels. The ghost of the English literary tradition combined with specters and spirits embody how Ackroyd’s life na...

Vratio sam se Cioranu, točnije, prevođenju njegova djela Civilizirani čovjek: Portret. Mislim da nitko od nas pisaca na arapskome jeziku ne propituje manjkavosti i paradokse ovoga našega slučajna postojanja tako realistično i pronicljivo kao ovaj Rumunj, do grla u tako nesvetim vodama. Preveo sam Finsku rapsodiju Johna Ashberyja. Dugo sam se s njom borio. Ovaj veliki pjesnik doista sjajno radi dvije stvari koje volim: u jeku stvaranja ne razmišlja o čitateljima i dijeli nekoliko zajedničkih točaka s Cioranom. *Dragi Hassane, Prije više od deset godina odrekla sam se duhana, što znači da sam se riješila navike i više mi ne nedostaje nakon jutarnje kave! Ipak, nove navike utabale su svoje puteve u mojoj dnevnoj rutini. Naravno, većinom su to bezazlene navike, neke su čak i blagotvorna i ugodna uživancija za nekoliko vidova fragmentirana bića poput mene (Pascal je ponudio generalizaciju i usporedio čovjeka s mislećom trskom koja drhturi na vjetru). Sjedim dugo pred kompjuterom, koji mi je...

The article will read the biracial Korean American Michelle Zauner’s grief memoir, Crying in H-Mart (2021), which is suffused with raw articulations of agony and despair as it documents Zauner’s cancer-stricken mother’s last days. However, I will focus on how Zauner devotedly undertakes learning to cook and consume her mother’s dishes following her mother’s demise. As the gustatory sensation is induced in its entirety, she not only starts memorializing her mother but also starts learning how to embrace her biracial identity, which has often been a bone of contention between her and her mother. Therefore, evoking David Sutton’s concept of gustemology, which identifies food as a cultural site capable of reimagining the worlds displaced in space and time, I will examine how synesthesia, radiating through the process of creation and recreation of food and memory, could suggestively resuscitate the irrevocable loss, often suffered by migration and displacement, death, and bereavement.

Emancipation narratives in the U.S. feminist literature of the late 1960s and 1970s constructed the female identity in line with the feminist slogan "the personal is political." The heroine, constrained by gender roles in the private sphere, realizes that her personal problems have broader social causes, so she changes her life to create a new self that conflicts with traditional female roles. The emancipation of the protagonist Mira of The Women's Room written by Marilyn French, follows the genre conventions of the feminist Bildungsroman which shows Mira’s journey from a mad housewife to a Harvard graduate. Even though the novel shows that the personal becomes political in the emancipation of the heroine from the constraints of the female private sphere, the novel fails to convey the optimism of broader change in the depiction of Mira’s friends whose lives show that emancipation is a long and difficult journey indeed.Keywords: emancipation narratives, feminist Bildungsroman, The Women...

Ljestve poput pupkovine ispadaju iz helikoptera do žene u vodi pod njim, a mi stojimo na rtu, sleđenih srca, širom otvorenih očiju i usta, i dok lopatice helikoptera razjaruju more, žena pada s daske i nestaje pod površinom, i svi uzdišemo kao jedan, a ja, inače nesklona molitvi, padam na koljena, zazivam svetoga Brendana Moreplovca, i svetoga Nikolu Preobratitelja Pirata, i Stellu Maris, blistavu zvijezdu mora, i Mami Wata od Kariba, da je spase, da se smiluju toj prestravljenoj ženi; i svi se ti slani sveci u kovitlacu sjate i nad njom lebde, a mi gledamo, puni strahopoštovanja, kako ta žena kao uznesena njihovim moćima izranja iz valova, rukom hvata prečku konopa i diže se sve više i više dok ne sleti na travu na litici, iznova rođena.Ja sam ta koja je snimila fotografiju princeze i njezinih nožnih prstiju u ustima muškarca koji joj nije muž. Nisam je namjeravala snimiti. Poslali su me da ih pratim, ali uopće nisam htjela biti ondje, ni najmanje. Dan je već bio dug i težak.Naslonila...