Napokon…!

Neki vole da pričaju, drugi više vole da slušaju. Mogu li se ljudi, pa i pisci, podijeliti u dvije grupe? Antje Rávik Strubel je cijeli život mislila da pripada jednoj grupi, sve dok joj nije ispričana priča koja je dovela u pitanje njenu (samo)percepciju.
 

Saša Stanišić već nekoliko godina sa sinom igra pripovjedačku igru: maleni bira tri rijeeči, a Saša Stanišić od njih pravi priču. Priča uvijek počinje činjenicom da se odveze taksijem - i na kraju se vrati. Na kraju književnog festivala u Rejkjaviku, izmislio je priču za nas - na riječi „lisica“, „vulkan“, „majica“.
 

Los Angeles has become part of the author’s very being. The city is a living presence within her in many of her distinctly magical memories: journeys along empty streets, lemon blossom, the splendour of palm trees silhouetted against the night sky, the seasons so subtly differentiated that people who live in places with ‘proper’ seasons aren’t even aware of them. She carries LA with her wherever she goes, until finally she returns there.

Colm Tóibín wrote his most recent novel, The Magician, in Los Angeles. The book concerns Thomas Mann, who in the 1940s also lived in LA - in a house that was built to his own specification, and in which he wrote his novel Dr Faustus. Although the house was close by, Tóibín couldn’t visit it because of the pandemic, with the result that it remained a house of dreams full of inspiring treasures - though it did ultimately open its doors once again.

He hasn’t the faintest idea how he had come to be sitting at the same table as a mother claiming to have once lived in this same house - along with her daughter’s  erstwhile boyfriends. The last of these ex-boyfriends had waited every day for the return of the daughter, who worked as a mountain guide. But on many occasions the daughter had simply not come home...

The Icelandic writer Þórarinn Eldjárn recalls an event - an everyday event - that happened quite a long time ago. But suddenly a strange object pops up in his account. He takes hold of it, and...