Il labirinto

Il millepiedi

La partita a scacchi

La freccia avvelenata

IL DECALOGO DI NOTTE LA GATTA

1. IO sono la sola padrona incontrastata di questa casa e dei bipedi che la abitano.
2.Tutti i bipedi dipendono da me.Senza di ME sarebbero persi
3.Non desiderate i quadrupedi altrui.Vi basto IO.
4.Ricordatevi di onorarMi,coccolarMi e riverirMi ogni giorno della vostra miserabile esistenza
5.ChiedeteMi il permesso per uscire da questa casa,pena la mia sdegnosa indifferenza
6.Miei sono poltrone,divani,letti a quant'altro.Voi le usate solo per Mia gentile concessione.
7.RingraziateMi e siateMi grati che ogni mattina alle 6 vi sveglio coi miei miagolii.Senza di ME sareste dei tiratardi,pelandroni,rammolliti e smidollati.
8.Non osate preferire a ME computer e TV.Vi attirereste la Mia ira funesta
9.Il Mio mangiare non è il vostro,il vostro lo è,soprattutto se trattasi di pollo,tonno e tacchino
10.Ricordatevi ogni minuto della vostra insulsa esistenza che IO reggo le redini di questa casa e ringraziate il Dio dei gatti in ginocchio per avervi concesso a ME

Scrittori dimenticati:Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

 was born at Kislovodsk on 11th December, 1918. My father had studied philological subjects at Moscow University, but did not complete his studies, as he enlisted as a volunteer when war broke out in 1914. He became an artillery officer on the German front, fought throughout the war and died in the summer of 1918, six months before I was born. I was brought up by my mother, who worked as a shorthand-typist, in the town of Rostov on the Don, where I spent the whole of my childhood and youth, leaving the grammar school there in 1936. Even as a child, without any prompting from others, I wanted to be a writer and, indeed, I turned out a good deal of the usual juvenilia. In the 1930s, I tried to get my writings published but I could not find anyone willing to accept my manuscripts. I wanted to acquire a literary education, but in Rostov such an education that would suit my wishes was not to be obtained. To move to Moscow was not possible, partly because my mother was alone and in poor health, and partly because of our modest circumstances. I therefore began to study at the Department of Mathematics at Rostov University, where it proved that I had considerable aptitude for mathematics. But although I found it easy to learn this subject, I did not feel that I wished to devote my whole life to it. Nevertheless, it was to play a beneficial role in my destiny later on, and on at least two occasions, it rescued me from death. For I would probably not have survived the eight years in camps if I had not, as a mathematician, been transferred to a so-called sharashia, where I spent four years; and later, during my exile, I was allowed to teach mathematics and physics, which helped to ease my existence and made it possible for me to write. If I had had a literary education it is quite likely that I should not have survived these ordeals but would instead have been subjected to even greater pressures. Later on, it is true, I began to get some literary education as well; this was from 1939 to 1941, during which time, along with university studies in physics and mathematics, I also studied by correspondence at the Institute of History, Philosophy and Literature in Moscow.

In 1941, a few days before the outbreak of the war, I graduated from the Department of Physics and Mathematics at Rostov University. At the beginning of the war, owing to weak health, I was detailed to serve as a driver of horsedrawn vehicles during the winter of 1941-1942. Later, because of my mathematical knowledge, I was transferred to an artillery school, from which, after a crash course, I passed out in November 1942. Immediately after this I was put in command of an artillery-position-finding company, and in this capacity, served, without a break, right in the front line until I was arrested in February 1945. This happened in East Prussia, a region which is linked with my destiny in a remarkable way. As early as 1937, as a first-year student, I chose to write a descriptive essay on "The Samsonov Disaster" of 1914 in East Prussia and studied material on this; and in 1945 I myself went to this area (at the time of writing, autumn 1970, the book August 1914 has just been completed).

I was arrested on the grounds of what the censorship had found during the years 1944-45 in my correspondence with a school friend, mainly because of certain disrespectful remarks about Stalin, although we referred to him in disguised terms. As a further basis for the "charge", there were used the drafts of stories and reflections which had been found in my map case. These, however, were not sufficient for a "prosecution", and in July 1945 I was "sentenced" in my absence, in accordance with a procedure then frequently applied, after a resolution by the OSO (the Special Committee of the NKVD), to eight years in a detention camp (at that time this was considered a mild sentence).

I served the first part of my sentence in several correctional work camps of mixed types (this kind of camp is described in the play, The Tenderfoot and the Tramp). In 1946, as a mathematician, I was transferred to the group of scientific research institutes of the MVD-MOB (Ministry of Internal Affairs, Ministry of State Security). I spent the middle period of my sentence in such "SPECIAL PRISONS" (The First Circle). In 1950 I was sent to the newly established "Special Camps" which were intended only for political prisoners. In such a camp in the town of Ekibastuz in Kazakhstan (One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich), I worked as a miner, a bricklayer, and a foundryman. There I contracted a tumour which was operated on, but the condition was not cured (its character was not established until later on).

One month after I had served the full term of my eight-year sentence, there came, without any new judgement and even without a "resolution from the OSO", an administrative decision to the effect that I was not to be released but EXILED FOR LIFE to Kok-Terek (southern Kazakhstan). This measure was not directed specially against me, but was a very usual procedure at that time. I served this exile from March 1953 (on March 5th, when Stalin's death was made public, I was allowed for the first time to go out without an escort) until June 1956. Here my cancer had developed rapidly, and at the end of 1953, I was very near death. I was unable to eat, I could not sleep and was severely affected by the poisons from the tumour. However, I was able to go to a cancer clinic at Tashkent, where, during 1954, I was cured (The Cancer Ward, Right Hand). During all the years of exile, I taught mathematics and physics in a primary school and during my hard and lonely existence I wrote prose in secret (in the camp I could only write down poetry from memory). I managed, however, to keep what I had written, and to take it with me to the European part of the country, where, in the same way, I continued, as far as the outer world was concerned, to occupy myself with teaching and, in secret, to devote myself to writing, at first in the Vladimir district (Matryona's Farm) and afterwards in Ryazan.

During all the years until 1961, not only was I convinced that I should never see a single line of mine in print in my lifetime, but, also, I scarcely dared allow any of my close acquaintances to read anything I had written because I feared that this would become known. Finally, at the age of 42, this secret authorship began to wear me down. The most difficult thing of all to bear was that I could not get my works judged by people with literary training. In 1961, after the 22nd Congress of the U.S.S.R. Communist Party and Tvardovsky's speech at this, I decided to emerge and to offer One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich.

Such an emergence seemed, then, to me, and not without reason, to be very risky because it might lead to the loss of my manuscripts, and to my own destruction. But, on that occasion, things turned out successfully, and after protracted efforts, A.T. Tvardovsky was able to print my novel one year later. The printing of my work was, however, stopped almost immediately and the authorities stopped both my plays and (in 1964) the novel, The First Circle, which, in 1965, was seized together with my papers from the past years. During these months it seemed to me that I had committed an unpardonable mistake by revealing my work prematurely and that because of this I should not be able to carry it to a conclusion.

It is almost always impossible to evaluate at the time events which you have already experienced, and to understand their meaning with the guidance of their effects. All the more unpredictable and surprising to us will be the course of future events.

Alexandr Solzhenitsyn died on 3 August, 2008.

Scrittori dimenticati:Vladimir Majakovskij

Vladimir Majakovskij nasce a Bagagadi, in Georgia, nel 1893. Suo padre è un nobile decaduto che si presta a lavori umili, come forestale. Giovanissimo, Vladimir si appassiona alla poesia, che legge e che recita in un costante monologo interiore.
Conosce e ne diviene amico Velimir Chlebnikov, poeta sperimentalista che ha fondato il gruppo Hyleano. Anche per l'entusiasmo teorico profuso da Majakovskij, il gruppo iniziale si allarga e si tramuta nella leggendaria cerchia dei cubofuturisti. La voracità intellettuale di Vladimir è leggendaria, la sua presenza fisica imponente ne fa una sorta di divo spettacolare.
Il successo del poema Tu!, steso durante gli anni della Prima Guerra mondiale, è debordante e del tutto imprevisto. Dal 1917, l'anno della Rivoluzione d'Ottobre (che abbatte il regime zarista e determina la disgregazione dell'impero russo), si impegna nell'attività di intellettuale che aderisce alla rivoluzione e, in ambito letterario, abbandona il futurismo per il realismo. L'adesione alla Rivoluzione d'Ottobre lo rende ancor più popolare e amato. Negli anni successivi fonda una attività letteraria, scrive articoli per riviste e giornali, poemi, poesie e opere teatrali e tiene numerose conferenze in Russia e all'estero.

 

La celebrazione dell'industrializzazione sovietica, poi, non fa altro che proiettarne la figura ai ranghi elevati dell'intellighentsija rivoluzionaria. E' una situazione destinata però a incrinarsi. L'avvento di Stalin e la palese trasformazione degli ideali rivoluzionari in gestione del potere nelle mani di un tiranno non possono essere esenti da un violento attacco, che Majakovskij non intende negarsi.

Il drammatico vitalismo della poesia di Majakovskij dispiega la sua impressionante varietà di registri: dal sarcasmo antiborghese degli anni che precedono la Rivoluzione alla satira sferzante contro i nuovi "borghesucci sovietici", dalla marcia proletaria alla rivolta contro i quadri di partito, dall'antimilitarismo ironico alle struggenti poesie d'amore. Epica ed elegia, amore disperato e impegno civile: la poesia di Majakovskij è un monumento alla contraddizione. Concepita per essere declamata davanti ad un pubblico incolto, questa poesia dalla "fonetica assordante" stravolse magistralmente i parametri tradizionali della lingua poetica e della metrica russa.

La sua situazione sentimentale (per anni partecipa a un devastante triangolo amoroso che vede protagonisti, oltre a Vladimir, la bellissima Lili Brik e suo marito Josip) e le contingenze politiche gettano tuttavia il poeta in uno stato di estrema prostrazione psicologica. La morte, avvenuta per supposto suicidio nel 1930, è ancora un capitolo ambiguo della storia sovietica: alcuni storici hanno messo in dubbio la versione del suicidio amoroso e hanno indicato la probabilità che Majakovskij sia stato "suicidato" da sgherri del regime.

Scrittrici dimenticate:Eliza Cook

Eliza Cook was born on February 5, 1856, in Salt Lake City, Utah. Her parents, John and Margaretta Cook, had migrated from Birmingham, England, to join the Mormon settlement there. When Eliza was a child, her mother took her and her younger sister, Rebecca, and left Salt Lake City. They settled first in Soda Springs, Idaho, where Margaretta took in boarders. From there they moved to White Pine County, Nevada and then, in 1870 when Eliza was 14 years old, they settled in Sheridan, Nevada, where Eliza's uncle, John Cook, already resided.

Margaretta and her two daughters all worked. Margaretta sewed and took in washing, and the girls worked for families in the Carson Valley. As there was no school in the valley, the girls often borrowed books from the families for whom they worked. Eliza happened to read a little in a home doctor book and from that time on wanted to study medicine.

She got her chance to do so during the winter of 1879 and 1880, when she was hired by Dr. H. W. Smith, of Genoa, to nurse his wife through a particularly bad case of puerperal fever. He noticed her interest in his medical books and her natural way with her patient, and suggested that she study medicine. When she said she didn't know enough, he answered, "Oh yes, you do." Eliza studied with Dr. Smith for 6 months, and then entered Cooper Medical College in San Francisco, which later became Stanford Medical School. In her class of sixteen students, she was one of five women. She received her degree in 1884 and returned to Carson Valley to practice, making her home and office with her sister, Rebecca, and her brother in law, Hugh Park.

After practicing medicine for several years, and delivering babies from Genoa to Markleeville, Dr. Cook went back to school. She attended the Women's Medical School of Philadelphia during the 1890 1891 school term, then did graduate work the following summer at the Post Graduate Medical College of New York.

Armed with both a medical degree and graduate schooling, Dr. Cook opened an office in Reno, in November of 1891. However, after about six months there, she returned to practice in the Carson Valley, for, as she said at the time, she had never seen a place that suited her as well.

Not only did Dr. Cook practice medicine, but she was also very active in community affairs. When she was just 14 years old, she had joined The Band of Hope, a temperance organization for youth. Later, she became a member of The Good Templars, and was very active in the Women's Christian Temperance Union. She attended the state WCTU convention in Carson City in 1892, and served that organization as state president from 1896 until 1901. She lectured in both Genoa and Reno on "The Need for Plain Living."

Dr. Cook was also a strong supporter of women's rights. As she wrote, "My first protest against the prevailing social order came when a child between eleven and thirteen I read in the third chapter of Genesis: 'Thy desire shall be to thy husband and he shall rule over thee.' That man should rule over woman was to my mind unjust. I went to my mother with my protest and she told me the husband's rule was right only when it was a righteous rule. That silenced my tongue for a time but not my mental protest."

In 1894 she wrote a letter to the Reno Gazette listing eleven reasons why she was in favor of women having equal voting rights with men. It was also printed in the Genoa Courier. She attended the meeting at McKissick's Opera House in Reno in October of 1895 to form the Nevada Women's Equal Suffrage League. There she was elected a vice president, along with Hannah Clapp, of Carson City. After her term was over, she became president of the Douglas County Equal Suffrage League, and continued to serve both organizations by circulating petitions, writing to legislators, and publishing letters in the newspapers. Again, in her own words, "During all this time my protests against the injustices of our socio economic system never ceased. I was a member of The Women's Suffrage Association and of The Women's Christian Temperance Union; circulated petitions for the former, talked on both subjects when opportunity offered and made myself very objectionable at times, I've no doubt."

In the spring of 1901, Dr. Cook took a year off from her medical and community responsibilities. She traveled abroad with a companion, visiting such places as the British Isles, Europe, Egypt, the Holy Land, Constantinople, and Greece. On her return, she spoke about the trip to many interested groups.

Dr. Cook continued to practice medicine from the home of her sister and brother in law until she had a small house built for herself in Mottsville and moved her office there in 1911. She retired from the medical profession in 1921, at the age of 65. After her retirement, Dr. Cook continued to do her own gardening and housekeeping. She was known for her excellent cooking and sewing. She was devoted to her nieces and nephews, and the whole family called her "Auntie." She read voraciously, and subscribed to many periodicals, including the Scientific Monthly, the Survey Graphic, the New Republic, the Nation, and the Pathfinder.

Dr. Eliza Cook died in her sleep on October 2, 1947, at the age of 91. She was found lying on her bed with her hands folded across her chest. On her bedside stand was a handwritten "Outline of My Life."

Dr. Cook considered herself to be the first woman doctor in Nevada. Even though she received her Medical Degree in 1884, she did not receive her Nevada medical license until April of 1899, as the state did not begin issuing them until that year.

Scrittrici dimenticate:Esther Singer Kreitman

As the only female writer in what many consider the most singular family in the history of Yiddish literature, Esther Kreitman and her small literary output have been overshadowed by the voluminous works of her brothers I.J. and I.B. Singer. Her notable contribution to Yiddish literature, unheralded in her lifetime, was to write in Yiddish in support of thehaskalah (Jewish enlightenment) from a female perspective, an achievement made all the more remarkable by her lifelong struggle with depression and perhaps other undiagnosed emotional and physical illnesses which disrupted her ability to write. Her ruthless depictions of women’s place in hasidic society remain as painful as fresh wounds. In her autobiographical novel Der Sheydim Tants (Deborah) she wrote:

“In his heart of hearts, Reb Avram Ber disapproved of his wife’s erudition. He thought it wrong for a woman to know too much, and was determined that this mistake should not be repeated in Deborah’s case. Now there was in the house a copy of Naimonovitch’s Russian Grammar, which Deborah always studied in her spare moments, but whenever her father caught her at this mischief he would hide the book away on top of the tiled stove out of her reach, and then she would have to risk her very life to recover it.”

Kreitman was born Hinde Esther Singer on March 31, 1891 in Bilgoraj, Poland. Though her rabbi father, Pinkhes Mendl Singer, and educated mother, Batsheva Zylberman Singer, daughter of the rabbi of Bilgoraj, refused to provide her with the formal education that she strongly desired, she nevertheless learned to read several languages and became interested in world literature. In her youth she wrote stories, which she never intended for publication and eventually destroyed, well before her younger brothers had taken up their pens. Her parents were both abusive and neglectful of her, in marked contrast to their treatment of her brothers, Israel Joshua (1893–1944), Isaac Bashevis (1904–1991) and Moshe (1906–c. 1944). She escaped this traumatic situation into an arranged marriage (c. 1912) with an Antwerp diamond cutter, Avraham Kreitman, which proved unhappy. After the disintegration of her marriage in 1926 she divided her time between Warsaw and London, eventually settling permanently in England and struggling to support herself by writing, translating and speaking. Kreitman’s stories and serialized novels appeared in many Yiddish newspapers world-wide before being published in book form. Three books were published in Yiddish in her lifetime: the novels Der Sheydim Tants (The Devil’s Dance, 1936) and Brilyantn (Diamonds, 1944), and the collection of stories, Yikhes (Lineage, 1949). Der Sheydim Tants was published in English under the title Deborah in 1946. In both languages her work received favorable notices. In addition to writing her own fiction, Kreitman translated Dickens and Shaw into Yiddish and was active not only in maintaining the London literary journal Loshn un Lebn, but also in socialist circles. She died on June 13, 1954, in her apartment in London, and was cremated according to her wishes.

Of her brothers, I.B. Singer (known as Bashevis in Yiddish) moved to New York and became the Yiddish writer best known to non-Yiddish readers, garnering a multitude of translations and a Nobel Prize for Literature in 1978. Also in New York I.J. Singer, though less frequently translated, was highly regarded in Yiddish literary circles. Bashevis praised his brother’s novels strongly and frequently after his death in 1944 but usually failed to mention the writings of his still-living sister. In his own writings he referred to her by the name Hinde, further obscuring her identity. Bashevis’s story “Yentl the Yeshiva Boy” is said to have been based, in part, on his sister’s thwarted desire for education: feminist critics see it as a literary appropriation curiously devoid of empathy, especially given Bashevis’s lack of real-life aid to Kreitman’s literary or personal ambitions. The youngest brother, Moshe, who was not a writer, became a rabbi, remained in Poland, and perished in the Holocaust. Kreitman’s son, Morris Kreitman (May 11, 1913–March 16, 2003), wrote stories and translated his mother’s work (using his own name as well as the pseudonym Martin Lea). He went on to a long career in journalism in Palestine and later Israel, using the name Maurice Carr, by which he is generally known in Israel today.

Kreitman’s masterwork is undoubtedly Der Sheydim Tants, which draws on her experiences growing up in a hasidic family amid the social and political turmoil of pre-World War I Poland. Her depiction of the impoverished rabbi’s family, in which the father is a fool and the mother a cold and embittered scholar, paints a different picture of the Singer family than that found in her brothers’ writings (though the latter did note the mismatch between their parents). In the words of literary critic Anita Norich, “Kreitman shares little of her brothers’ nostalgic search for the true past” (Norich, 1990). Indeed, Kreitman’s view of tradition could be said to be unflinchingly critical in the face of male sentimentality. Der Sheydim Tants, which is striking for its continually bleak view of the possibilities and limits of human relationships, ends on a note of complete despair. Throughout the novel’s narrative, relations both between men and women and among women are tainted as insincere, exploitative, and competitive. This quality is not found in her short stories, which include many positive and hopeful endings, and many characters who are able to comfort and support each other and to transform themselves. Interestingly, several of her stories have seen more than one translation, although the majority remain available in Yiddish only. Her second novel, Brilyantn, which has never been translated, was praised by Melech Ravitch (1893–1976) and others for its wealth of detail and insider knowledge of the Jewish diamond trade.

Ritratti di donna:Miriam Makeba

Dovrei dire (Barbaro)

Dovrei dire
della tua mano tesa,
dei tuoi occhi
in cerca dei miei,
delle tue labbra in attesa,
delle tue parole che non sento.

Dovrei dire
delle tue lacrime nascoste,
del tuo silenzioso dolore
e della mia, triste, indifferenza.

Libri dimenticati:I bassifondi della città

La storia di un giovane condannato alla sedia elettrica e dei tentativi del suo avvocato per salvarlo.Ne hanno tratto un film con Humphrey Bogart e John Derek

Frase delgiorno

Dire a un uomo che èstupido non serve,c'è il rischio che se ne vanti (Allais)