Anima

The Nightmarish Dreaming Of Max Blecher

The reverie aims to take hold of imaginary territories when the real ones are missing. Max BLECHER In his novels and especially in Occurrences in Current Unreality this process of dreaming turns into an account of an immediate unreality. I-mediated to be more accurate,

The Lightened Burrow

excerpts When I call up one of these memories with my eyes closed and it is reborn with the intensity of its previous reality; when at other times, with the same intensity and in the same convincing light, settings and events which never happened pass through my mind; when

Occurrences In Current Unreality

excerpts I could find antiques and old objects evoking sad memories on still another deserted floor in my grandfather's house. There the walls were covered by strange pictures having thick, gilded, wooden frames, or thinner frames of red plush. There were also several

Old-Court Philanderers

excerpts Que voulez-vous, nous sommes ici aux portes de l'Orient, où tout est pris à la légère. Raymond Poincaré*Welcoming the Philanderers…au tapis-franc nous étions réunis. L. Protat**Although no further than the night before I had promised myself under

Europe Has The Shape Of My Brain

*More than a century ago Europe was not yet known as a cultural construction, an intellectual day-dream, a heap of broken images, a copy in a world without originals. Artists tried to escape the big fortress ensconced in coal smog and torn by wars, social conflicts, and

Cotadi And Dragomir

Cotadi is short and thickset, with bulging muscles, his legs articulated twice outwards and once inwards; he is always unshaven. His raven black hair is covered with dandruff, sparklers and precious tortoise-shell combs. Cotadi cannot stand upright because of an armor-like

A Journey Thorugh Somaliland

Sire,Dear Gentlemen and Ladies,The Somalis' Country, of which I have the honour of relating, stretches along the entire East Horn of Africa and is called Bar-as-Somal in the Somali language. The Somalis belong to the Mohammedan religion of the Shafi'ite sect and

The Elephants' Lake

excerptWe arrived on the right riverside of the Congo, in front of the bridge, which the engineers could not even imagine; a general aaah went out of their chests. In addition, at the same time, after casting me glances of imputation, they burst into formidable laughers.

Conference On The Independent State Of Congo

excerptTo put it in a nutshell, there are three races living in Congo today:The Pygmies, scattered all over the territory and on the verge of extinction;Nuba, the invaders who live in the north – and, finallyThe Bantu, the most numerous. Several distinct and independent

The Defiance Of Rhetoric. German Diary (1984)

excerptsWhen you arrive in Frankfurt, coming from Eastern Europe, you find too little of what you knew about Germany from the readings of its great writers. Another world, other values, another history. A civilisation of concrete and of computers. It is only when you arrive

Vienna

All roads to the West go through Vienna. Generous crossroads where the western world fuses with the horizons of eastern Europe and the Germanic spirit seems to have rich confluences with Latinity, the old Austrian metropolis still conveys the same charm that those claras

The Chronicle And Song Of The Ages

excerptThat afternoon we took a train to Constanta where, the same evening, we planned to embark on a Romanian ship bound to Constantinople. We arrived in Constanta late at night, so we didn't get to see any of the city or port. All I remember is the very agitated sea.