"a flor vermelha feito um coalho de sangue prendendo de lado os cabelos negros"

" (...) e não tardava Ana, impaciente, impetuosa, o corpo de campônia, a flor vermelha feito um coalho de sangue prendendo de lado os cabelos negros e soltos, essa minha irmã que, como eu, trazia a peste no corpo, ela varava então o círculo que dançava e logo eu podia adivinhar seus passos precisos de cigana se deslocando no meio da roda, desenvolvendo com destreza gestos curvos entre as frutas e as flores dos cestos, só tocando a terra com a ponta dos pés descalços, os braços erguidos acima da cabeça serpenteando lentamente ao trinado da flauta mais lento, mais ondulante, as mãos graciosas girando no alto, toda cheia de uma selvagem elegância, seus dedos canoros estalando como se fossem, estava ali a origem das castanholas, e em torno dela a roda girava cada vez mais veloz, mais delirante, as palmas de fora mais quentes e mais fortes, e mais intempestiva (...) ela sabia fazer as coisas, essa minha irmã, esconder primeiro bem escondido sob a língua a sua peçonha e logo morder o cacho de uva que pendia em bagos túmidos de saliva enquanto dançava no centro de todos, fazendo a vida mais turbulenta, tumultuando dores, arrancando gritos de exaltação. (...)"

Raduan Nassar

Lavoura Arcaica (1999) Relógio d'Água, p. 31

Raduan Nassar (n.1935) é um escritor brasileiro de origem síria e libanesa. Estudou Filosofia na Universidade de São Paulo e publicou, entre outras obras, Lavoura arcaica (1975) Um copo de cólera (1978) e Menina a caminho (1994). Nassar terá deixado de escrever por volta de 1984 para se dedicar inteiramente à vida rural em Buri no estado de São Paulo. Apesar do número reduzido de livros publicados é considerando um dos mais importantes escritores da literatura brasileira do século XX, tendo sido galardoado, nomeadamente, pela Academia Brasileira de Letras com o Prémio Coelho Neto. Depois de ter dedicado grande parte da sua vida à criação de gado e ao cultivo de arroz, aveia, soja e trigo, Nassar decide em 2011 doar parte da sua fazenda a particulares e outra parte à Universidade Federal de São Carlos, com vista à criação de cursos de Agronomia, Engenharia Florestal, etc. 

«Nedjma» de Kateb Yacine na versão árabe de Said Boutadjine

Tradução de Said Boutadjine

Carta de Albert Camus a Jean Grenier

Sanatorium du Grand Hôtel Leysin, 

21 de Janeiro [1948] 

 Dear friend, One must get out of Paris to get one’s letters written. It’s stupid but it’s the truth. Lately I have spent time fighting damned nuisances and false obligations in order to work on the dialogues of a production I have just finished for Barrault. Apart from that, I wasn’t capable of anything. And then I fled to Switzerland to see Michel Gallimard and also to begin my play about the Russian terrorists of 1905. To get some rest as well, in spite of, or because of, my hatred for the mountains. 

There was no hesitation on my part regarding Egypt. We were decided, and really happy about the trip. But it seems to me that M. Fort has misinformed you. In fact the Relations Culturelles was unwilling to assign me…Unless I am mistaken, I have the impression they don’t want to send me to an Arab country right now, for reasons you can very well imagine. So they strongly suggested England, Italy, South America, the Scandinavian countries, who knows what else…Since I’m not one to insist (damned pride!), I politely agreed. I regret it and I can’t tell you how much. Europe and its cemeteries disgust me. 

 So…I came to take refuge in the city of sanatoriums. Here I reflect and hope to find a way to leave Paris for good (at least!). 

 Thank you also for what you wrote me about La Poste. But I believe less and less that man is innocent. The thing is, my basic reaction is always to stand up against punishment. After the Liberation I went to see one of those purge trials. The accused was guilty in my eyes. Yet I left the trial before the end because I was with him and I never again went back to a trial of this kind. In every guilty man, there is an innocent part. This is what makes any absolute condemnation revolting. We do not think enough about pain. 

 Man is not innocent and he is not guilty. How to get out of that? What Rieux…means is that we must cure everything we can cure—while waiting to know, or see. It’s a waiting situation and Rieux says, “I don’t know.” I came a long way to reach this admission of ignorance. One begins with a discourse of parricide and comes back to the morality of common men. That’s something to be proud of. 

 At the very least, it seems to me that one must acknowledge it and move on. This is what remains for me to do. And it is then that I will have something less trivial to tell you perhaps. But it’s about solitude and I would like to be sure of my words… 

 In any case, have no doubt about my affectionate thoughts. Sometimes it seems I no longer have anything to say to anyone except to you (and to my mother, with whom I never speak of course). And in everything I intend to do, I would be at quite a loss if I could not turn to you. Write to me in spite of my silence. 

 To you and yours, very affectionately. 

Albert Camus

Correspondences, 1932-1960: Albert Camus and Jean Grenier. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press (2003), pp. 111-113.

Kateb Yacine: o insubmisso

Chegou às bancas a versão francesa do livro Nabi El içyan, ("Le prophète de l’insoumission") do jornalista Hamida Layachi.

Mais informações aqui.

Mistério e inacessibilidade

"En effet, avec le texte de Kateb, on se trouve en pleine révolution scripturale: éclatement et mélange des genres et des formes, syncopes de la linéarité, déconstruction systématique de la chronologie, caractère fragmentaire, multiplication des narrateurs et des points de vue, alternance des récits à la première et à la troisième personne, circularité du récit par la reprise à la fin du roman de fragments qui se trouvaient déjà au début, tous ces éléments justifient pleinement une obsession de la forme qui se retrouvera au coeur de la littérature maghrébine ultérieure. En même temps, à ce bouleversement d’ordre formel répond en écho une mise en question de la construction du sens: un souffle de mystère poursuit le personnage de Nedjma, en rendant son trajet incomplet et inachevé. La perte de sens est vouée à intégrer le lecteur au processus de sa construction. En ce qui concerne la nouveauté absolue du texte de Kateb, c’est à juste titre qu’Abdelkébir Khatibi remarquait : Avec Kateb, il s’agit d’une mise en question de tout le roman moderne. (...)"

 Alina Gageatu-Ionicescu
"Lectures de sable: les récits de Tahar Ben Jelloun"
UEB - Université européenne de Bretagne (2009)

Sem Kateb Yacine...

"Radicalement insolite au moment de sa publication, […] l’oeuvre de Kateb, aujourd’hui encore, n’a rien perdu de sa force ni de sa fécondité. Sans elle, ni Mohammed Khaïr-Eddine, ni Rachid Boudjedra, ni Abdelkébir Khatibi, ni Tahar Ben Jelloun, entre bien d’autres, n’auraient sans doute écrit de la même façon. (...)"

Jacques Noiray

 Littératures francophones, I. Le Maghreb, Paris, Éditions Belin, 1996, p. 139

Avant garde

"C’est une oeuvre qui se situe d’emblée dans ce qu’il est convenu d’appeler l’avant-garde du roman, et c’est bien là, le trait le plus spécifique du génie de Kateb. Alors que le roman maghrébin d’expression française, héritier de toute une tradition littéraire, s’inscrit dans une technique strictement réaliste, sans innovation d’aucune sorte […] Kateb Yacine, par la structure de son récit, rejoint ce qu’on appelle déjà en France le ʺNouveau romanʺ, qui n’en est encore cependant qu’à ses premières productions. (...)"

Marc Gontard 

Nedjma de Kateb Yacine. Essai sur la structure formelle du roman. 

(1985) Paris: L’Harmattan