Reading
SAT | 8.12., 15.30 – 16 h READING
Aris Fioretos: “Half the Sun”
What do we owe our parents? What does the citizen owe the state? Aris Fioretos relates the story of a Greek father backwards: from his death in the care home, to his life as an expat Greek, back to his time as a young man.
Abstract:
Intermezzo
A SON: It’s slow going, but I intend to work my way backwards. Each new tableau will be a step — a year, a breath — back to the time before you became a dad. The end will be your beginning. This is a song of mourning in reverse.
THE DEADED: What’s the good of that?
A SON: But I want to save you, can’t you see? Make you into a person who is not a dad, and therefore cannot die as a dad.
THE DEADED: But I want to be a dad. Nothing is better than that.
From: Aris Fioretos, Half the Sun, translated by Paul Berf, Munich: Carl Hanser Verlag 2013.
Aris Fioretos is a Swedish author and translator of Greek-Austrian descent. “Der letzte Grieche“ has been published in 2011, “Die halbe Sonne” is to be published at the end of January 2013 by the Carl Hanser Verlag.