Serins

Fran, dear Fran,

It is time of serins. The last days of January are involved in the joyful and unstoppable song of these little finches. Serins, as we call them —you call them chamarines, which apparently is a word that comes from Portuguese language— are little birds of a green similar to the wild canary and a little smaller than this one.

Don´t you believe in Providence? 

It was already after midnight when I went to bed. Yesterday I was watching a film on television: at the end of the Second World War, Russian soldiers had entered a Polish convent and had raped the nuns for several days.

Sigha  

«…le monde d´aujourd´hui ne ressemble pas à l´image que vous vous en faites! Ce nést pas vrai qu´il est dirigé par des forces obscures, omnipotentes!»

Fast food 

«De fait, nous sommes tous infinement plus proches de nos contemporains que de nos ancêtres. Serais-je en train d´exagérer si je disais que j´ai bien plus de choses en commun avec un passant choisi au hasard dans une rue de Prague, de Séoul, ou de San Francisco, que´avec mon propre arrière-gran-père?»

Hope's dream

     I have received news of Hope

     Like her name, Hope has always had the hope of leading a different life and in one way or another she has achieved it. Like you Fran or me. Like any. Only in the case of my sister much more accentuated. A life that runs parallel to what she actually lives.

The times of the planetary tribes

A magnificent painting by Rubens, Cain killing Abel (detail) appears on the cover of the book. Another allusion to confrontation and violence between brothers.

Everything has a beginning, a development and an end

It´s a small book that I found in one of those traveling stalls in a square in the city. For some time I had wanted to read the author of Leo Africanus, Samarkand and other works that are so well valued.