dissidentlibrary

[dissidentlibrary]

I never want to hear conservatives go on about repressive censorship in China, North Korea, and Iran ever again

[dissidentlibrary]

À l'époque, on méprisait la jeunesse. Personne ne l'avait encore embellie, exaltée, prolongée jusqu'à la mort. Personne n'avait encore appris à la jeunesse l'agressivité, la suprématie du fauve, la poussée totalitaire. La jeunesse ne savait pas encore qu'elle était une catégorie biologique à part, une formation sociale distincte, un état de privilèges particuliers dans l'état de l'existence universelle.

Tadeusz Konwicki, Chroniques des événements amoureux

#tadeusz konwicki #Kronika wypadków milosnych #A Chronicle of Amorous Accidents #Kronika wypadków miłosnych #literature

[dissidentlibrary]

En ce temps-là, personne ne voulait être jeune. La jeunesse était quelque chose de honteux, d'incomplet, de bete. La jeunesse était comme le fléau de Dieu, ou comme le purgatoire de la promotion rêvée.

C'était l'époque des jambes arquées, appelées, Dieu sait pourquoi, la maladie anglaise. C'était l'époque des visages grêlés dont on disait que le diable y avait moulu des fèves. C'était l'époque des bouches édentées et des gencives pleines de chicots noircis qui ne faisaient peur à personne. [...] C'était une époque merveilleuse peuplée de gens très laids.

À l'époque, on méprisait la jeunesse. Personne ne l'avait encore embellie, exaltée, prolongée jusqu'à la mort. Personne n'avait encore appris à la jeunesse l'agressivité, la suprématie du fauve, la poussée totalitaire. La jeunesse ne savait pas encore qu'elle était une catégorie biologique à part, une formation sociale distincte, un état de privilèges particuliers dans l'état de l'existence universelle.

Chroniques des évènements amoureux, Tadeusz Konwicki

#polish art #tadeusz konwicki #polish literature #polish book #literature

[dissidentlibrary]

“I want to tell you, don’t marry suffering. Some people do. They get married to it, and sleep and eat together, just as husband and wife. If they go with joy they think it’s adultery.”

— Saul Bellow, Seize the Day

[dissidentlibrary]

Audra McDonald, Anne Hathaway and Raúl Esparza in Twelfth Night by Brigitte Lacombe, 2009.

[dissidentlibrary]

I've always loved this. 🥹

[dissidentlibrary]

The blue sky seemed to descend like a blanket.

And I couldn't say anything,

I couldn't cry;

I just remebered his face,

a bright, blunt, handsome face,

and his weariness, which he wore like his skin,

and the way he said ro-aad for road,

and his telling me how the tatters of clothes

from a lynched body hung,

flapping, in the tree for days,

and how he had to pass that tree every day.

Medgar.

Gone.

James Baldwin, I Am Not Your Negro.

#james baldwin #medgar evers #i am not your negro #black civil rights #black history

[dissidentlibrary]

Heroes

I begin in Septembe, when I go on the road. "The road" means my return to the South. It means, briefly, for example, seeing Myrlie Evers, and the children - those children, who are children no longer. It means going back to Atlanta, to Selma, to Birmingham. It means seeinng Coretta Scott King, and Martin's children.

James Baldwin, I Am Not Your Negro.

#james baldwin #i am not your negro #myrlie evers #malcolm x #martin luther king jr #black civil rights #civil rights movement #selma #heroes #raoul peck #the dissident library #literature

[dissidentlibrary]

Some of us should have been there with her!

But it was on that bright afternoon

that I knew I was leaving France.

I could, simply, no longer sit around

in Paris discussing the Algerian

and the black American problem.

Everybody else was paying their dues,

and it was time I went home and paid mine.

James Baldwin, I Am Not Your Negro.

That's when I saw the photograph.

Facing us, on every newspaper kiosk

on that wide, tree-shaded boulevard in Paris

were photographs of fifteen-year-old Dorothy Counts

being reviled and spat upon by the mob

as she was making her way to school

in Charlotte, North Carolina.

James Baldwin, I Am Not Your Negro.

[dissidentlibrary]

There was unutterable pride, tensuin, and anguish

in that girl's face

as she approached the halls of learning,

with history, jeering, at her back.

It made me furious,

it filled me with both hatred and pity.

And it made me ashamed.

James Baldwin, I Am Not Your Negro.

That's when I saw the photograph.

Facing us, on every newspaper kiosk

on that wide, tree-shaded boulevard in Paris

were photographs of fifteen-year-old Dorothy Counts

being reviled and spat upon by the mob

as she was making her way to school

in Charlotte, North Carolina.

James Baldwin, I Am Not Your Negro.

[dissidentlibrary]

That's when I saw the photograph.

Facing us, on every newspaper kiosk

on that wide, tree-shaded boulevard in Paris

were photographs of fifteen-year-old Dorothy Counts

being reviled and spat upon by the mob

as she was making her way to school

in Charlotte, North Carolina.

James Baldwin, I Am Not Your Negro.

#james baldwin #dorothy counts #i am not your negro #raoul peck #the dissident library #black history #civil rights movement #go tell it on the mountain #the fire next time #giovanni's room #baldwin

[dissidentlibrary]

I always wonder why we don't just add introductions to texts that are deemed too problematic to be left in the wild.

Why don't we just face these texts for what they are and with an ounce of critical thinking?

Add a foreword, add a critical essay by some scholar (hire us, please), add contextualisation and critiques.

Idk what goes through people's head but rewriting original texts and taking out what you consider insulting is in fact, not the sign of a new edition of a text. It's the publication of an entirely different one.

[dissidentlibrary]

Books recently banned in Moscow

Last month, Muscovite libraries received a list of 53 books that were to be taken off the shelves. In total, it's 34 titles (with various editions of said titles) which are not to be seen again in those libraries.

It's unclear why those specific books were targeted, but what is certain is that they all contain, in one way or another, LGBT+ content (something which is understood as "Western propaganda" by the Russian government), they are criticizing totalitarianism and they are considered popular amongst Russian readers.

Here is the full list, with Storygraph/WorldCat links.

Possession, Anthony Susan Byatt (1990)

The Immortalists, Chloe Benjamin (2018)

The Absolutist, John Boyne (2011)

A Ladder To The Sky, John Boyne (2018)

"El Jersei", Blanca Busquets (2006) [no English translation]

"Рана : роман", Oksana Vasyakina (2021) [no English translation]

Playing a part, Daria Wilke (2013)

James Miranda Barry, Patricia Dunker (1999)

The Prophets, Robert Jones Jr. (2021)

Lizard, Banana Yashimoto (1993)

Our Lady of the Flowers, Jean Genet (1988)

Confessions, Jaume Cabre (2011)

The Snow Queen, Michael Cunningham (2014)

By Nightfall, Michael Cunningham (2010)

The Girls, Emma Cline (2016)

"Введение в сексологию", Igor Kon (1989)

The Notebook, Agota Christoph (1986)

Every day, David Levithan (2012)

It’s me – Eddie, Edward Limonov (1979)

The Borrower, Rebecca Mackay (2011)

Dancer, Colum McCann (2003)

After the Quake, Haruki Murakami (1999)

Oh boy!, Marie-Aude Murail (2016) [no English translation]

The Air You Breathe, Frances de Pontes Peebles (2018)

"Люди луннаго свѣта. Метафизика христіанства", Vasily Rozanov (1911) [no English translation]

The Raven boys, Maggie Stiefvater(2012)

The Dream Thieves, Maggie Stiefvater (2013)

Family Album, Danielle Steel (1994)

Tipping the Velvet, Sarah Waters (1998)

The Little Stranger, Sarah Waters (2009)

Making History, Stephen Fry (1996)

The Fry Chronicles, Stephen Fry (2011)

The Perks of being a Wallflower, Stephen Chbosky (1999)

The Wave, Todd Strasser (1981)

Sources

Article in French: Actuallite

Articles in English: Observatorial, The Bell, Nippon, Meduza

[dissidentlibrary]

The language, though, which I now heard for the first time is not like the language I had learnt at school. These are living voices and have another ring. My mind was like a keen knife. But the language is not my language; I had learnt to be eloquent in it through perseverance. And the train carried me to Victoria Station and to the world of Jean Morris.

Season of migration to the North, Tayeb Salih

[dissidentlibrary]

Look at what @saintsaensreads's wrap up of the year made me do...

(They smell like old soup and I love it)

#jean genet #querelle de brest #christa wolf #literature #the dissident library #french books #second hand

[dissidentlibrary]

at some point you have to realize that you actually have to read to understand the nuance of anything. we as a society are obsessed with summarization, likely as a result of the speed demanded by capital. from headlines to social media (twitter being especially egregious with the character limit), people take in fragments of knowledge and run with them, twisting their meaning into a kaleidoscope that dilutes the message into nothing. yes, brevity is good, but sometimes the message, even when communicated with utmost brevity, requires a 300 page book. sorry.

[dissidentlibrary]

This book has been sitting on my shelf and looking at me for such a long time, that's criminal...

Next door to that is a baker's apprentice with his wife, who works in a print shop. She has an ovarian cyst. What does life have to offer the two of them? Well, first they have each other, then last Sunday there was music hall and cinema, then various club meetings and visits to the in- laws. Is that it? Now, sir, don't be giving yourself airs. Throw in the weather, fair or foul, trips to the countryside, warming up by the stove, breakfast together, so on and so forth. What have you got that's so special, Captain, General, Jockey? Don't kid yourself.

Berlin Alexanderplatz, Alfred Döblin