translated by Leah Leone

Diary of Vienna

A young boy carries a bucket of water. Its weight seems somehow lightened by the belief that the desiccated tree will come back to life if watered every day. The end of the story is less important than the image of his persistence—and his faith. I cannot conceive of anything more idiotic than faith, especially with respect to faits accomplis.  The tree is dead. The feeling I have is that death appropriates everything, as if taking something back something that had been his all along.

It is impossible to halt the processes that take over the body, after death. The body stops being a body, after death. Death arrogates the deepest, most intimate spaces. The darkness is complete, the silence, the body that continues but does not go on, after death. I am too … Read More »

Juan Carlos Mondragón
translated by Leah Leone

Until the middle of the afternoon of the day before yesterday, I thought I had a good angle for the article I was writing about an incident in the Russo-Japanese war of 1904, as a way to further the discussion about the submarine strategy employed during the blockade of Port Arthur. While researching, I also worked on my courses for the upcoming semester—I teach Latin American History at an Italian university and lead a seminar based on Eugen Millington Drake’s Battle of the River Plate—to bring focus on the key elements that had contributed to the stunning efficacy of a joint strike at high seas, the incalculable factor that had made it a classic battle in all of military history, without arriving at a convincing conclusion. When the logical connection has rusted over, … Read More »