Она вернулась к пациенту и ощупала его живот. До кишечника кандидоз еще не добрался. Вдруг Клер замерла. Незнакомец свистел. Громко свистел. И весело. Он не был болен. Ни один больной не станет так свистеть в приемной...
ла презамечательная особа во многих отношениях; а потому да позволено будет мне сказать еще несколько слов о ней: она сидела, как было упомянуто выше, постоянно на одном месте и..
Муж ушел со двора, так повара оплошали!" Гость же себе на уме: "Добро, королева, спасибо! Пусть бы везде на дороге так плохо меня угощали!..
Guatemalan poet, novelist, diplomat, and winner of the Nobel Prize for literature in 1967. Asturias's writings combine the mysticism of the Maya with epic impulse toward social protest. Asturias spent much of his life in exile because of his public opposition to dictatorial rule.
"If you write novels merely to entertain - then burn them! This might be the message delivered with evangelical fervour since if you do not burn them they will anyway be erased from the memory of the people where a poet or novelist should aspire to remain. Just consider how many writers there have been who - down the ages - have written novels to entertain! And who remembers them now?" (from Nobel Lecture, 1967)
Miguel Angel Asturias was born in Guatemala City. His father and mother were forced to move to the town of Salama as a result of their political differences with the Guatemalan dictator Estrada Cabrera. Asturias gave up a career in medicine in 1917 and studied law at the Universidad de San Carlos de Guatemala (1917-23), and participated in the 1920 uprising against Cabrera.
In 1923 Asturias received a law degree and continued his education in Europe. Instead of taking economics as his father had intended him to do, Asturias studied anthropology under Georges Raymond in Paris at the Sorbonne (1923-28) and encountered French translations of Mayan writings. He developed a deep concern for the Mayan culture and in 1925 he translated the sacred Mayan text Popol Vuh into Spanish. During these years Asturias also began to write poetry and fiction. In 1923 he founded the magazine Tiempos Nuevos. Asturias lived in Paris for ten years.
Astrurias established his reputation as a stylist with LEYENDAS DE GUATEMALA (1930), based on a Mayan myth. The Leyendas were half fairy-tales, half poetry, written in a lyrical Spanish. Two years later Asturias wrote his first novel on the theme of Latin American dictatorship, EL SENOR PRESIDENTE, which did not appear until 1946. The society of the novel is corrupted; evil spreads downwards from the ruler. Justice is a mockery, and army officers spend their time plotting or in brothels. El Senor Presidente utilized surrealistic techniques; it reflected Asturias's idea that Indians' nonrational perception of reality is an expression of the subconscious forces, the collective dream of mankind. "In the city of Copan, the King walks his silver-skinned does in the Palace gardens. The royal shoulder is adorned with a jewelled feather of nahual. He wears on his breast magic shells, woven upon golden thread." The story is partly based on real events, although it has no precise time or locale. Estrada Cabrera, the dictator of Guatemala from 1898 to 1920, made his political adversary, Manuel Paz, believe that Paz's wife had been unfaithful to him. In the novel, set in the unnamed capital of an unnamed state, the President tries to eliminate two of his enemies, General Canales and a lawyer, Carvajal. The General manages to escape, and the President's favorite, Miguel Cara de Angel falls in love with his daughter, Camila. General Canales dies of heart failure on reading a false newspaper report that the President had attended his daughter's wedding; Cara de Angel is arrested and he receives a false report that Camila has become the President's mistress.
--"An angel!" The wood-cutter couldn't take his eyes from him. "An angel," he repeated, "an angel!"
--"It's obvious from his clothes that he's very poor," said the newcomer. "What a sad thing it is to be poor!"
--"That depends; everything in this world depends on something else. Look at me; I'm very poor; but I've got my work, my wife and my hut, and I don't think I'm to be pitied," stammered the wood-cutter like a man talking in his sleep, hoping to ingratiate himself with this angel, who might recompense his Christian resignation by changing him from a wood-cutter to a king, if he so wished. And for a second he saw himself dressed in gold, with a red cloak, a crown on his head and a scepter set with jewels in his hand. The rubbish dump seemed far away..."
(from Mr. President)
After returning to Guatemala in 1933 Asturias worked as a journalist and made broadcasts for El Diaro del Aire. He was a journalist between the years 1933 and 1942. In the 1940s he a entered diplomatic career, and served as a cultural attache in Mexico (1945-47) and held a number of other diplomatic posts, from 1947 to 1953 he was in Buenos Aires, in Paris in 1952-53, and as ambassador to San Salvador in 1953-54. He separated from his first wife Clemencia Amado and married Blanca de Mora y Aruaho in 1950. Asturias's career in the diplomatic corps ended for a while when he was banished by the right-wing forces of Carlos Castillo Armas, never to live in Guatemala again.
HOMBRES DE MAIZ (1949) is considered Asturias's masterpiece. It depicted a rebellion by a remote tribe of Indians against desecration of their mountains and their annihilation by the army. The novel plunged deep into the magic world view of Indians. Asturias used in it his knowledge of pre-Columbian literature and told the story in a form of a myth. Gaspar Ilom, the first of the myth-figures presented by the author, speaks as the earth itself: "Thus he spoke with his head separated from his body, pointed, warm, wrapped in the grey mop of the moon. Gaspar Ilom grew old as he was speaking. His head had fallen to the ground like a flower pot sown with little feet of thoughts..." Gaspar leads a rebellion against the maize planters, and becomes a legend. Eventually the Indians lose their land, and their magic. Because of the difficult style of the book, it was ignored for a long time.
In the 1950s Asturias wrote the so called Banana Trilogy, VIENTO FUERTE (1950), EL PAPA VERDE (1954) and LOS OJOS DE LOS ENTERRADOS (1960), revealing the evils of the United Fruit Company. It depicts how a plantation is set up in a small Central American state, and how the villages are seized and burned. In the last part the central action concerns the efforts of Octavio Sansur to arrange a general strike. In the end both peasant/worker cooperatives and labour unionism face formidable obstacles.
WEEK-END EN GUATEMALA (1956) a collection of short stories, dealt with the intervention of the United States against the Arbenz government. When colonel Castillo Armas took power in 1954, Asturias lived in exile in Chile with the poet Pablo Neruda and later in Buenos Aires where he worked as a correspondent for the Venezuelan newspaper El Nacional. In 1962 Argentinian policy forced him into exile again. Asturias moved to Italy as a cultural exchange programme member. In 1966 he was named by the new president of Guatemala as ambassador to France. Asturias spent his final years in Madrid, where died on a lecture tour on June 9, 1974.
For further reading: Into the Mainstream: Conversations with the Latin-American Writers by L. Harss & B. Dohmann (1967) Myth and Social Realism in Miguel Angel Asturias by Luis Leal (1968); An Introduction to Spanish-American Literature by Jean Franco (1969); Miguel Angel Asturias by R.J. Callan (1970); Miguel Angel Asturias by Eladia Leon Hill (1972); Conversaciones con Miguel Angel Asturias by Alvarez Luis Lopez (1974); De tirasnos, heroes y brujos by Giuseppe Bellini (1982); La problematica de la identidad en "El Senor Presidente" de Miguel Angel Asturias by Teresita Rodriquez (1989); Miguel Angel Asturias's Archaeology of Return by Rene Prieto (1990); Las Novelas de Miguel Angel Asturias desde la teoria de la recepcion by Lourdes Royano Gutierrez (1993) - Suom.: Suomeksi Asturiakselta on kaannetty myos novellikokoelma Weekend Guatemalassa ja runoja antologiassa Kello 0.
Selected bibliography:
Sociologia guatemalteca, 1923 - Guatemalan Sociology
Rayito de estrella, 1925
La Arquitectura de la Vida Nueva, 1928 - The Building of a New Life
Leyendas de Guatemala, 1930 - Leyendas
Emulo lipolidon, 1935
Sonetos, 1936
Alclasan, 1939
Anoche, 10 de marzo de 1543, 1943
El Senor Presidente, 1946 - The President - suom. Herra Presidentti
Sien de alondra, 1948
Poesia, 1949
Hombres de Maiz, 1949 - Men of Maize
Viento Fuerte, 1950 - The Cyclone/Strong Winds
Ejercicios poeticos en forma de soneto sombre temas de Horacio, 1951
Carta aerea a mis amigos de America, 1952
EL Papa Verde, 1954 - The Green Pope
Bolivar, 1955
Obras escogidas, 1955 (3 vols.)
Soluna, 1955
Week-end en Guatemala, 1956 - Weekend in Guatemala
La audiencia de los confines, 1957
Nombe custodio, e Imagen pasajera, 1959
Los Ojos de los Enterrados, 1960 - The Eyes of the Interred
El alhajadito, 1961 - The Bejeweled Boy
Mulata de tal, 1963 - Mulatta
Juan Girador, 1964
Teatro, 1964
Rumania, sua nueva imagen, 1964
Obras escogidas, 1964 (2 vols.)
Sonetos de Italia, 1965
Clarivigilia primaveral, 1965
El espejo de Lida Sal, 1967
Torotumbo, La audiencia de los confines; Mensajes indios, 1968
Latinoamerica y otros ensyaos, 1968
Antologia, 1968
Obras completas, 1968 (3 vols.)
Maladron, 1969
Comiendo en Hungaria, 1969 (with Pablo Neruda) - Sentimental Journey around the Hungarian Cuisine
Novelas y cuentos de juventud, 1971
En novelista en la universidad, 1971
The Talking Machine, 1971 (Engl. translation)
Viernes de dolores, 1972
Juarez, 1972
America, fabula de fabulas y otros ensayos, 1972
Mi mejor obra, 1974
Tres obras, 1977
Tres de cuatro soles, 1977
Edicion critica de las obras completas, 1977- (24 vols.)
Actos de fe en Guatemala, 1980
Sinceridades, 1980
Viajes, ensayos y fantasias, 1981
El hombre que lo tenia todo, todo, todo, 1981
Paris 1922-1923, 1988
Cartas de amor, 1989
Тем временем:
... Положение это продолжалось уже третий день и мучительно чувствовалось и самими супругами, и всеми членами семьи, и домочадцами. Все члены семьи и домочадцы чувствовали, что нет смысла в их сожительстве и что на каждом постоялом дворе случайно сошедшиеся люди более связаны между собой, чем они, члены семьи и домочадцы Облонских. Жена не выходила из своих комнат, мужа третий день не было дома. Дети бегали по всему дому, как потерянные; англичанка поссорилась с экономкой и написала записку приятельнице, прося приискать ей новое место; повар ушел еще вчера со двора, во время обеда; черная кухарка и кучер просили расчета. На третий день после ссоры князь Степан Аркадьич Облонский - Стива, как его звали в свете, - в обычный час, то есть в восемь часов утра, проснулся не в спальне жены, а в своем кабинете, на сафьянном диване.. Он повернул свое полное, выхоленное тело на пружинах дивана, как бы желая опять заснуть надолго, с другой стороны крепко обнял подушку и прижался к ней щекой; но вдруг вскочил, сел на диван и открыл глаза. "Да, да, как это было? - думал он, вспоминая сон. - Да, как это было? Да! Алабин давал обед в Дармштадте; нет, не в Дармштадте, а что-то американское. Да, но там Дармштадт был в Америке. Да, Алабин давал обед на стеклянных столах, да, - и столы пели: Il mio tesoro, и не Il mio tesoro, а что-то лучше, и какие-то маленькие графинчики, и они же женщины", - вспоминал он. Глаза Степана Аркадьича весело заблестели, и он задумался, улыбаясь. "Да, хорошо было, очень хорошо. Много еще там было отличного, да не скажешь словами и мыслями даже наяву не выразишь". И, заметив полосу света, пробившуюся сбоку одной из суконных стор, он весело скинул ноги с дивана, отыскал ими шитые женой (подарок ко дню рождения в прошлом году), обделанные в золотистый сафьян туфли и по старой, девятилетней привычке, не вставая, потянулся рукой к тому месту, где в спальне у него висел халат. И тут он вспомнил вдруг, как и почему он спит не в спальне жены, а в кабинете; улыбка исчезла с его лица, он сморщил лоб...
