In the introduction to his first collection of short stories, the Chinese storyteller Lu Xun says that he found himself driven to write because he felt intense loneliness. He was not able to forget, or, rather, he was not able to forget completely; So, he wrote stories about the past.
This is exactly what prompted me to write: overwhelming loneliness. I also failed to forget, so I wrote what remained in my memory about Syria before the war.
Sometimes, exiles write about nostalgia for a country they miss and wish to return to. This is not like the nostalgia of Syrians: the country has completely changed, and even disappeared. We long for a place that does not exist, except in memory. And memory, as you know, writhes, colors, and churns. I am no exception, and my memory does not claim to be completely faithful to reality, but I tried hard to write exactly what you dictated to me.
Hopes, dreams, and losses are all fading quickly, and so is the country, and what remains of it is in us: as if it were a half-smile, or a summer cloud, or a bright comet passing quickly, only to disappear completely moments later, before the eyes of curious, bored viewers, indifferent to its fate...
It happens that a story creeps into your depths, shaking you violently and challenging you to turn away from it. This is exactly what happened to me with the story of the Nightingale. The truth is that I did everything in my power not to write this novel, but my research into the subject of World War II led me to the story of the young woman who made an escape route from occupied France, and I could not escape from it. Thus, her story became the starting point, and in reality it is a story of heroism, risk, and unbridled courage. I could not distract myself from her; I kept digging, exploring, and reading, until this story led me to other stories that were no less amazing. It was impossible for me to ignore those stories. Thus, I found myself under the weight of one question haunting me, a question that remains as valid today as it was seventy years ago: Under what circumstances would I risk my life as a wife and mother? More importantly, under what circumstances would I risk my child's life to save a stranger? This question occupies a major position in the novel The Nightingale. In love, we discover who we want to be; In war, we discover who we are. Perhaps sometimes we do not want to know what we can do to survive our lives. In war, women's stories have always been ignored and forgotten. Women usually return home from the battlefields, say nothing, and then move on with their lives. The Nightingale is a novel about these women, and the bold choices they made to save their children and maintain the lifestyle they had become accustomed to. Kristen Hannah
What happens when we die? Is there a second life after death? Why does everyone talk in their dying moments about a tunnel of light at the end?
Can insects read? What does a Tibetan monk do in a high school? Was Newton just a mathematician? How do we save the world?
And most important of all, does she reciprocate his admiration?
Many important questions that need to be answered, and who is more capable of doing that than a high school student who believes that he is the best musician in the world, and with a little help from his coffee-loving grandfather (even if he is dead... a little).
Under the roof of a modest hostel in a poor neighborhood in the Chilean capital, a strange group of guests meets, including workers, trade unionists, students, traffic police, and performance artists. Let them all witness the last days of the rule of the Popular Union headed by Salvador Allende, before the bloody coup led by General Pinochet took place and changed the history of Chile forever. Thus, this hostel turns into something similar to an operations room through which some Chilean leftists try to protect the socialist government and stand up to fascism. And among all of them, Arturo, the braggart and virginal football player, coming from the south to the capital, and burdened with dreams of fame and unsatisfied desires, tries to discover himself and determine his position on everything that is happening around him.
“I Dreamed That the Snow Was Burning” is the first novel by Chilean writer Antonio Scarmeta, and one of his most important works. In it, the features of a special, diverse style are established in terms of rhythms and narrative techniques, in which imagination blends with reality, and in which sarcastic humor alleviates the harshness of dramatic events. The book is a living document of the dialogues, conflicts, and popular mood that prevailed in Chile at the most pivotal moments in its history.
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