Crafted Memories

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.

U posljednjoj knjizi koju je objavio prije nego što si je oduzeo život, I sommersi i salvati (Utopljenici i spašeni), Primo Levi razmišlja, ovaj put ne u formi svjedočanstva već eseja, o toj nerješivoj zagonetki zašto neki – u rubnim situacijama kada im prijeti istrebljenje i smrt – imaju čudesnu sreću da izvuku živu glavu dok drugi, možda čak i većina, nesreću da se utope, odnosno, da ih uništi slijepa mržnja i nepravda proizašla iz povijesnih okolnosti, diktatura ili volje za moći.Postavljam si to isto pitanje od 27. lipnja 2023. u 19 sati i 28 minuta, kada je ruski projektil tipa Iskander, visoke preciznosti i natovaren sa šest stotina kilograma eksploziva, eksplodirao nad našim glavama u jednoj pizzeriji u Kramators'ku, na 21,6 kilometara udaljenosti od crte bojišnice između slobodne Ukrajine i Ukrajine koju su okupirali Rusi.U tom paklu koji se srušio s neba s jasnom namjerom da nanese najveću moguću štetu, izazove najveći mogući broj žrtava, najsnažniju bol i patnju, šezdeset lju...

The Blue Street owed its name to the sapphire fumes of opium and calm-fruit coming out of the pipes of glass hookahs. The buildings were colourful and winding, and everybody seemed to be high or drunk. Or both. Violence was almost unheard of, as the guilds of thieves kept a close eye on everything, well aware that blood would only draw in the city guard, giving the trade council the reason to jump up on their feet and begin preaching about the decay of civil virtue, of which Silktown, of course, had none. “Does Oak know we’re leaving?”“Only Crow and Blackbird know,” he smirked. “So, it’s only a matter of time when all the crew, together every drunkard in the docks, finds out.” “Don’t you trust our brothers?”“Crow I trust, I trust Blackbird too, but I trust his love for mead more.”“Who taught you to be so vicious?”“Why, you, of course.”“You couldn’t have learned anything nice from me, could you?” Needle looked at her with a hint of gentleness and curiosity. “Only the bad stuff?”“Like wh...

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...

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...

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...