Walking through Tsaritsyno Park on the outskirts of Moscow, my guide and I came to the end of a forest path. There before us: a perfect semi-circle of baby-blue porta-potties. The path went left and the path went right. »It is like a Russian fairytale,« I was told. »If you go left, your legs will be chopped off. If you go right, you die some other way. Maybe better, maybe not so much. In Russia, the only safe way is
The new publication by the Akademie, Solitude Atlas, will be released on the occasion of its 25th anniversary as part of the Sommerfest (the Akademie’s annual summer festival) on July 18, 2015. The 145 participating authors, all former or current fellows of the Akademie since 1990, were invited to hand in a subjective text about the cities they are living in. Assembling letters, poems, essays, and illustrations from almost 100 cities and 48 countries all over the world, the anthology will offer
Wann gehört man zu einer Stadt, zu einem Ort? Wann gehört eine Stadt zu einem? Ist das korrekt, kann man das so sagen? Oder sind es nur die Viertel, die Straßen und die Gebäude, die zu uns gehören? Ich weiß nicht einmal, ob es mir überhaupt gestattet ist, zu einem Ort zu gehören oder einen Ort in Besitz zu nehmen. Meine Stadt. Mehrere Städte. Meine Städte. Mein Nirgendwo. Ich bin in Florenz geboren. Das steht in meinem Reisepass, steht in all meinen Dokumenten.
你在傍晚出来散步，其实也不是散步， 只是出来走一走，像个 放风的犯人。没有远山可供眺望。 四周是高楼。 腊梅的幽香也不会为你浮动。 又是十二月，树梢上 孩子们留下的喧声也冻僵了。 你走过街边的垃圾筒， 那些下班回家的人们也匆匆走过， 也就在那一刻，你抬起了头来—— 一颗冬夜的星，它愈亮 愈冷。 2013，12，北京 First published in: The Hongyan (Nr. 3), 2014.
Ruas longas de traçado retilíneo, cruzando a cidade de fora a fora, facilitam a orientação: moro aqui há poucos meses, mas nunca me perco em Curitiba. Uma em cada três pessoas é loura e tem olhos claros, mas a cidade está enegrecendo. Os parques e as praças estão mal cuidados: decepção enorme. Mas eles estão cheios de gente, e o meu filho Gabriel sai correndo como um doido, jogando a bola para o alto, se divertindo muito. As pessoas são
He was visiting Jerusalem when he was asked to write about Paris. He looked at the Ring Neighborhoods from the British War Cemetery in Mount Scopus. (Neve Yaakov. French Hill. Shuafat.) He thought about the Parisian suburbs. (Dionysiens. Bobigny. Sarcelles.) He thought about how Jerusalem is divided. How the arrondissements are divided. How everything is divided. He then thought about division, abstractly. (Meiosis. Algebraic number theory.) He thought about how nobody gets along with anyone else. Francophone Africa in Rue
Berlin ist ein außergewöhnlicher Ort, an dem andere Regeln als in den meisten Metropolen der westlichen Welt zu gelten scheinen. Ihren Ruf verdankt die Stadt vor allem der historisch bedingten politischen und ökonomischen Ausnahmestellung während der Zeit des Kalten Krieges. Aufgrund dieser Ausnahmestellung verfügten die Menschen Berlins nicht nur über eine größere Unabhängigkeit von etablierten kulturellen Normen, Werten und Märkten, sondern auch über einen ungewöhnlichen Überschuss an Zeit. Daher entwickelte sich Berlin in dieser Periode auch zu jener außerordentlichen Stadt,
همه ایرانیان شهری که من در آن به دنیا آمده ام و تمام کودکی و نوجوانی و جوانی ام را تا بیست و چند سالگی آنجا گذراندم را با دختران زیبا و شراب و شعرش می شناسند، اما شاید خیلی از مصرف کنندگان غیر ایرانی شرابِ«شیراز» ندانند که نام برند مورد علاقه شان نام شهری است در جمهوری اسلامی ایران که به خاطر شرایط آب و هوایی اش احاطه شده با باغ ها و تاکستان های فراوان و حتی امروز هم که خرید و فروش و تولید هر
Nyőgér település tatár megszállásról kapta a nevét. Új nyom, új föld, nekünk is egy hegy. Elvették a felét, másik családhoz került, a zsupp közepén húztak vonalat, oda építette az ükapám a vastagabb falat, hozzá passzított nagyobb hordókat, az szigeteli az idegenek hangját. Ha megecetesedik a bor, kiönti az apám, addig bodzát szedünk és harangvirágot gyűjtök, a vázába hervadnak el. Fészereinkben macskák a kisállatok, 2 év múlva elajándékozzuk őket, el fog gázolni kettőt egy autó, mert haza szöknek. Ott mi már
Welcome to Chişinău! An adventure into unknown. Experience Europe like never before. Chişinăul şi-a ales un destin nou: pro-european. Toate gurile de canalizare de pe traseul aeroport-centru au fost verificate şi apoi sudate. Peste 300 de copaci au fost curăţaţi. În jur de 150 de camioane de gunoi au fost scoase din oraş. Drumurile au fost reparate în timp record. Bordurile vopsite. Panourile publicitare dezinstalate. A fost aşternut un covor de iarbă de 80 de metri. 20 de metri din
Война в тебе и во мне. Гражданская. Повсюду — она. Я устала. Почитай мне сказку, сними чулки с левой ноги и с правой, приляг со мной на диване гостиницы безымянной, тихо и девственно, без всякого намёка на гендер. Покуда русские пыряют друг друга ножами. Пока солдатики топчут груди женские по тюрьмам и по подвалам. Танки идут не быстро, танки идут в колоннах, давай побудем женой и мужем, которым слова излишни, возьми мой голос, как скрипку, вложи в свой футляр из
Pēc tam kad 19. gadsimtā Kurzemē, Vidzemē un Latgalē tika atcelta dzimtbūšana un lauku ļaudīm uzliktie pārvietošanās ierobežojumi, vēlākās Latvijas Republikas teritorijā, tāpat kā daudzviet pasaulē, sākās masveida pārcelšanās uz pilsētām. Pilsētās bija ne vien fabrikas un labāk apmaksāts darbs, bet arī augstas skolas un dažnedažādas laukos nepieejamas izklaides. Iespējams, ja dzimtbūšana Krievijas impērijā nebūtu tikusi atcelta, ne par kādu latviešu kultūru mēs neko daudz nezinātu vēl arvien, – mūsu pirmās Atmodas darbinieki Krišjānis Barons, Krišjānis Valdemārs, Juris Alunāns izglītību
Indios Verdes ist einer der wichtigsten Verkehrsknotenpunkte Mexiko-Stadts, eine Arena von Menschen und Bussen, die hier aus den formellen und informellen Siedlungen des Umlands zusammenströmen oder ihre Reise in diesen sich immer weiter ausdehnenden Flickenteppich beginnen. Es ist ein Ort, an dem Stadt gemacht wird – beiläufig, auf der Straße und unterwegs zu Mexikos fortschreitender Urbanisierung –, ein Ort, an dem Schnittmengen hergestellt und Leben miteinander verknüpft werden. Mein Leben ist Teil dieses städtischen Werdens. Es ist Dienstagmorgen, und ich
Two million years ago, North America As glaciers expand southward in the last of the great ice ages, a massive ice floe creeps through existing river valleys, gouging deep U-shaped channels into the rock. 1178 B.C., Greece It is ten years since the Trojan War, but Odysseus has not yet returned home. He once came so close that his homeland of Ithaca came into sight, but he was driven back at the last moment by the winds. 1790, New York State
There are moments where you find yourself between places that mean a lot to you, locations that coexist within you. Places that blend and blur. The warm air during a December night in Bangkok – takes you back to the taxi drive in the dark summer night in Ramallah and simultaneously to the time in Kingston, Jamaica – all moments replayed and overlapping when moving through cityscapes. Moments that become the sum of experiences and exist as traces left in
The most enduring image I have of the town I was born in is of four metallic giants in padma asan, lotus position, exhaling rusty breath into the sky. In front of them is a smooth tree-lined road on which maroon buses approach the giants proclaiming »work is worship.« Around the buses are hundreds of cyclists. Amidst the traffic is the statue of a tribal man with a flaming torch in one hand and a bow in another. The image
My girlfriend is upper-working class. She lives in Blackheath, a suburb that by train – the cheapest form of travel in Cape Town – is two stops shy of Stellenbosch, a leafy, shady university town, where a sizable percentage of South Africa’s old white money resides. I live in Bishop Lavis. I’ve been lower workless class my whole life, a slight step above the homeless who constantly beg for change on Cape Town’s streets. Cape Town is a place for
You do the walking and I’ll be your camcorder. Be patient and take a good look at this picture, because you will have to try hard to imagine it otherwise. My friend Waiching says that »[you will] see it all washed in gray, and the fish tank with just one bright orange little fish.« I dare you to see something else. The story starts when you suddenly hear the clapping of hands from across the block of flats and you
I’ve been trying to get to a particular place in this city for as long as I can remember, but no one will take me. »It’s too far,« says one driver, but I know it can’t be. »It’s not a question of money,« says another, but he won’t say what it is a question of. I walk and walk, but the place I want to go keeps getting farther and farther away. Each step I take pushes the city out
I live in Los Angeles. After ten years, the landscape, weather, and light feel strange to me, but I can see that I have a good life here. I try to remember Marcus Aurelius’s advice: »Let no one, not even yourself, hear you speaking ill of court life.« A problem for emperors, and also for professors, who do not choose where they live, and are given to complaining about living in some of the world’s great cities. In the spirit
i. I stand looking into a field on the edge of Kerry at three cows curling their tongues around grass. On each side the field is bordered by a stone wall. It is December, and I am sleeping in a cottage with a loft bedroom and a turf-burning stove. When I wake, I can see the ocean. When I step outside, I am in a new landscape each day. The hills are sometimes beneath shadow, at other times beyond light.