The nobodies, who are not worth the bullet that kills them. Who do not appear in the history of the world, but in the police blotter of the local paper. Who are not human beings, but human resources. Who don’t have religions, but superstitions. The nobodies: the no ones, the nobodied, running like rabbits, dying through life, screwed every which way. The nobodies: nobody’s children, owners of nothing. Good luck doesn’t even fall in a fine drizzle, no matter how hard the nobodies summon it, even if their left hand is tickling, or if they begin the new day with their right foot, or start the new year with a change of brooms. But good luck doesn’t rain down yesterday, today, tomorrow, or ever. ~ Diana Rico The Nobodiesįleas dream of buying themselves a dog, and nobodies dream of escaping poverty: that one magical day good luck will suddenly rain down on them–will rain down in buckets. Below is the English translation by Galeano’s longtime translator, Cedric Belfrage, followed by the original Spanish. Here is a video by Caleb González of a poem from “The Book of Embraces,” with music by the great Spanish guitarist Paco de Lucia. These days I am swooning over “The Book of Embraces” by the Uruguayan writer Eduardo Galeano (whose “Memory of Fire,” a trilogy poetically chronicling the history of Latin America, I earlier swallowed in great, swift gulps).
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |