Crafted Memories

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.

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...

I WAS in three languages and I died in all three of them.

So how come you still speak?

I wound myself around the bodies of three nations and then I sought an escape.

Then why haven't you yet?

I echoed every poem, every word three times then I fell silent.

Have you finally forgotten about them, so you may begin anew?

I entered the hearts of three women and I devoured each.

What have you done with...

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...

my Mother’s Mother always told her the world was a dangerous place

it began in the sea between their Island and the shore where swimmers were processed when the monsters that were there when that world had begun pulled them by the fin processed from the missing Father who also thought he could swim

my Mother answered her Mother that she wasn’t afraid of the sea monsters or the factories with tall chimneys

but only of what would happen to the moles when neither the Island nor the shore had a single tree left

the world is a dangerous place as it takes a twenty-year-old tree...