Carmen Laforet, Christopher Brookmyre
Die spanische Schriftstellerin Carmen Laforet wurde am 6. September 1921 in Barcelona geboren. Sie übersiedelte im Alter von zwei Jahren auf die Kanarischen Inseln, wo sie ihre Kindheit und Jugend zubrachte, denn ihr Vater war in Las Palmas Architekt. Sie studierte Philosophie in Barcelona und Rechtswissenschaften an der Universidad Complutense de Madrid, brach aber mit 21 Jahren ihr Studium ab. In Madrid heiratete sie den Journalisten und Literaturkritiker Manuel Cerezales, mit dem sie fünf Kinder hatte. Im Alter von 19 Jahren wurde sie schlagartig bekannt, als sie 1944 den ersten Premio Nadal für ihren Erstlingsroman Nada erhielt. Noch im selben Jahr erschienen drei Auflagen des Buches, das bis heute ein Klassiker der spanischen Nachkriegsliteratur ist. 1948 erhielt die junge Autorin dafür auch den Premio Fastenrath der Real Academia Española. 1952 publizierte sie einen weiteren Roman, La Isla y los Demonios, der auf ihrer eigenen Erfahrung auf den Kanarischen Inseln beruht. La mujer nueva (1955), in dem sie ihre „Bekehrung“ zum Katholizismus behandelt, gewann 1956 den Premio Nacional de Literatura und den Premio Menorca de Novela 1955. La Insolación (1963) sollte der erste Band einer Trilogie mit dem Titel Tres Pasos fuera del Tiempo werden. 1965 reiste sie in die USA und veröffentlichte später den Essay Mi primer viaje a USA (1981) über diese Erfahrungen; dort lernte sie außerdem den spanischen Exilschriftsteller Ramón José Sender kennen, mit dem sie einen interessanten Briefwechsel pflegte.
Aus: Nada (Übersetzt von Edith Grossman)
„One of those old horse-drawn carriages that have reappeared since the war stopped in front of me, and I took it without thinking twice, arousing the envy of a desperate man who raced after it, waving his hat.
That night I rode in the dilapidated vehicle along wide deserted streets and crossed the heart of the city, full of light at all hours, just as I wanted it to be, on a trip that to me seemed short and charged with beauty.
The carriage circled the university plaza, and I remember that the beautiful building moved me as if it were a solemn gesture of welcome.
We rode down Calle de Aribau, where my relatives lived, its plane trees full of dense green that October, and its silence vivid with the respiration of a thousand souls behind darkened balconies. The carriage wheels raised a wake of noise that reverberated in my brain. Suddenly I felt the entire contraption creaking and swaying. Then it was motionless.
“Here it is,” said the driver.
I looked up at the house where we had stopped. Rows of identical balconies with their dark wrought iron, keeping the secrets of the apartments. I looked at them and couldn’t guess which ones I’d be looking out of from now on. With a somewhat tremulous hand I gave a few coins to the watchman, and when he closed the building door behind me, with a great rattling of wrought iron and glass, I began to climb the stairs very slowly, carrying my suitcase.
Everything felt unfamiliar in my imagination; the narrow, worn mosaic steps, lit by an electric light, found no place in my memory.
In front of the apartment door I was overcome by a sudden fear of waking those people, my relatives, who were, after all, like strangers to me, and I hesitated for a while before I gave the bell a timid ring that no one responded to. My heart began to beat faster, and I rang the bell again. I heard a quavering voice:
“Coming! Coming!”
Shuffling feet and clumsy hands sliding bolts open.
Then it all seemed like a nightmare.
In front of me was a foyer illuminated by the single weak lightbulb in one of the arms of the magnificent lamp, dirty with cobwebs, that hung from the ceiling. A dark background of articles of furniture piled one on top of the other as if the household were in the middle of moving. And in the foreground the black-white blotch of a decrepit little old woman in a nightgown, a shawl thrown around her shoulders.“
Carmen Laforet (6. September 1921 – 28. Februar 2004)
Der schottische Schriftsteller Christopher Brookmyre wurde am 6. September 1968 in Glasgow geboren. Nach seinem 1989 abgeschlossenen Studium der englischen Literatur und Theaterwissenschaften an der Universität Glasgow arbeitete er als Journalist in London, Los Angeles und Edinburgh. Nach drei erfolglosen Anläufen wurde im Jahr 1996 sein erster Roman veröffentlicht, Quite Ugly One Morning, in dem Jack Parlabane, die Hauptfigur in 5 seiner Bücher, erstmals in Erscheinung tritt. Parlabane ist ein investigativer Journalist, der bei seinen Recherchen die Grenzen des Erlaubten sehr weit auslegt. Alle Bücher von Brookmyre sind Thriller, die mit viel Satire und schwarzem Humor gewürzt sind. Sie stehen weniger in der Tradition der britischen Krimiautoren, sondern orientieren sich eher an amerikanischen Vorbildern wie Carl Hiaasen. Die Handlung dient häufig als Aufhänger für Kritik an Politik und Gesellschaft in Großbritannien.
Aus: Quite Ugly One Morning
„Jesus fuck.’
Inspector McGregor wished there was some kind of official crime scenario checklist, just so that he could have a quick glance and confirm that he had seen it all now. He hadn't sworn at a discovery for ages, perfecting instead a resigned, fatigued expression that said, ‘Of course. How could I have possibly expected anything less?’
The kids had both moved out now. He was at college in Bristol and she was somewhere between Bombay and Bangkok, with a backpack, a dose of the runs and some nose-ringed English poof of a boyfriend. Amidst the unaccustomed calm and quiet, himself and the wife had remembered that they once actually used to like each other, and work had changed from being somewhere to escape to, to something he hurried home from.
He had done his bit for the force — worked hard, been dutiful, been honest, been dutifully dishonest when it was required of him; he was due his reward and very soon he would be getting it.
Islay. Quiet wee island, quiet wee polis station. No more of the junkie undead, no more teenage jellyhead stabbings, no more pissed-up rugby fans impaling themselves on the Scott Monument, no more tweed riots in Jenners, and, best of all, no more fucking Festival. Nothing more serious to contend with than illicit stills and the odd fight over cheating with someone else's sheep.
Bliss.
Christ. Who was he kidding? He just had to look at what was before him to realise that the day after he arrived, Islay would declare itself the latest independentstate in the new Europe and take over Ulster's mantle as the UK's number one terrorist blackspot.
The varied bouquet of smells was a delightful courtesy detail. From the overture of fresh vomit whiff that greeted you at the foot of the close stairs, through the mustique of barely cold urine on the landing, to the tear-gas, fist-in-face guard-dog of guff that savaged anyone entering the flat, it just told you how much fun this case would be.
McGregor looked grimly down at his shoes and the ends of his trousers. The postman's voluminous spew had covered the wooden floor of the doorway from wall to wall, and extended too far down the hall for him to clear it with a jump. His two-footed splash had streaked his Docs, his ankles and the yellowing skirting board. Another six inches and he'd have made it, but he hadn't been able to get a run at it because of the piss, which had flooded the floor on the close side of the doorway, diked off from the tide of gastric refugees by a draught excluder.”
Christopher Brookmyre (Glasgow, 6. September 1968)
Aus: Nada (Übersetzt von Edith Grossman)
„One of those old horse-drawn carriages that have reappeared since the war stopped in front of me, and I took it without thinking twice, arousing the envy of a desperate man who raced after it, waving his hat.
That night I rode in the dilapidated vehicle along wide deserted streets and crossed the heart of the city, full of light at all hours, just as I wanted it to be, on a trip that to me seemed short and charged with beauty.
The carriage circled the university plaza, and I remember that the beautiful building moved me as if it were a solemn gesture of welcome.
We rode down Calle de Aribau, where my relatives lived, its plane trees full of dense green that October, and its silence vivid with the respiration of a thousand souls behind darkened balconies. The carriage wheels raised a wake of noise that reverberated in my brain. Suddenly I felt the entire contraption creaking and swaying. Then it was motionless.
“Here it is,” said the driver.
I looked up at the house where we had stopped. Rows of identical balconies with their dark wrought iron, keeping the secrets of the apartments. I looked at them and couldn’t guess which ones I’d be looking out of from now on. With a somewhat tremulous hand I gave a few coins to the watchman, and when he closed the building door behind me, with a great rattling of wrought iron and glass, I began to climb the stairs very slowly, carrying my suitcase.
Everything felt unfamiliar in my imagination; the narrow, worn mosaic steps, lit by an electric light, found no place in my memory.
In front of the apartment door I was overcome by a sudden fear of waking those people, my relatives, who were, after all, like strangers to me, and I hesitated for a while before I gave the bell a timid ring that no one responded to. My heart began to beat faster, and I rang the bell again. I heard a quavering voice:
“Coming! Coming!”
Shuffling feet and clumsy hands sliding bolts open.
Then it all seemed like a nightmare.
In front of me was a foyer illuminated by the single weak lightbulb in one of the arms of the magnificent lamp, dirty with cobwebs, that hung from the ceiling. A dark background of articles of furniture piled one on top of the other as if the household were in the middle of moving. And in the foreground the black-white blotch of a decrepit little old woman in a nightgown, a shawl thrown around her shoulders.“
Carmen Laforet (6. September 1921 – 28. Februar 2004)
Der schottische Schriftsteller Christopher Brookmyre wurde am 6. September 1968 in Glasgow geboren. Nach seinem 1989 abgeschlossenen Studium der englischen Literatur und Theaterwissenschaften an der Universität Glasgow arbeitete er als Journalist in London, Los Angeles und Edinburgh. Nach drei erfolglosen Anläufen wurde im Jahr 1996 sein erster Roman veröffentlicht, Quite Ugly One Morning, in dem Jack Parlabane, die Hauptfigur in 5 seiner Bücher, erstmals in Erscheinung tritt. Parlabane ist ein investigativer Journalist, der bei seinen Recherchen die Grenzen des Erlaubten sehr weit auslegt. Alle Bücher von Brookmyre sind Thriller, die mit viel Satire und schwarzem Humor gewürzt sind. Sie stehen weniger in der Tradition der britischen Krimiautoren, sondern orientieren sich eher an amerikanischen Vorbildern wie Carl Hiaasen. Die Handlung dient häufig als Aufhänger für Kritik an Politik und Gesellschaft in Großbritannien.
Aus: Quite Ugly One Morning
„Jesus fuck.’
Inspector McGregor wished there was some kind of official crime scenario checklist, just so that he could have a quick glance and confirm that he had seen it all now. He hadn't sworn at a discovery for ages, perfecting instead a resigned, fatigued expression that said, ‘Of course. How could I have possibly expected anything less?’
The kids had both moved out now. He was at college in Bristol and she was somewhere between Bombay and Bangkok, with a backpack, a dose of the runs and some nose-ringed English poof of a boyfriend. Amidst the unaccustomed calm and quiet, himself and the wife had remembered that they once actually used to like each other, and work had changed from being somewhere to escape to, to something he hurried home from.
He had done his bit for the force — worked hard, been dutiful, been honest, been dutifully dishonest when it was required of him; he was due his reward and very soon he would be getting it.
Islay. Quiet wee island, quiet wee polis station. No more of the junkie undead, no more teenage jellyhead stabbings, no more pissed-up rugby fans impaling themselves on the Scott Monument, no more tweed riots in Jenners, and, best of all, no more fucking Festival. Nothing more serious to contend with than illicit stills and the odd fight over cheating with someone else's sheep.
Bliss.
Christ. Who was he kidding? He just had to look at what was before him to realise that the day after he arrived, Islay would declare itself the latest independentstate in the new Europe and take over Ulster's mantle as the UK's number one terrorist blackspot.
The varied bouquet of smells was a delightful courtesy detail. From the overture of fresh vomit whiff that greeted you at the foot of the close stairs, through the mustique of barely cold urine on the landing, to the tear-gas, fist-in-face guard-dog of guff that savaged anyone entering the flat, it just told you how much fun this case would be.
McGregor looked grimly down at his shoes and the ends of his trousers. The postman's voluminous spew had covered the wooden floor of the doorway from wall to wall, and extended too far down the hall for him to clear it with a jump. His two-footed splash had streaked his Docs, his ankles and the yellowing skirting board. Another six inches and he'd have made it, but he hadn't been able to get a run at it because of the piss, which had flooded the floor on the close side of the doorway, diked off from the tide of gastric refugees by a draught excluder.”
Christopher Brookmyre (Glasgow, 6. September 1968)
froumen - 6. Sep, 18:52
