Thursday September 11

What I have learned today. At lunch it was raining hard. I am happy in my cozy office at CIAT, and working on translation projects from students. This week, two novels are almost translated. One is of Rose Marie Tapia, and the other is of Ricardo Puello, both panamanian authors. In both cases, I was the director of thesis for the students who chose to translate them as a final project.

It's Thursday...in the morning, at the swimming pool, I talked briefly to a French visitor named Maximilien. He reminded me of how bad the political situation is in France, with a president rejected by 87% of the population. He told me that here in Panama he makes much less money than the average income in France but that his living standard is much better. I feel the same and feel always grateful to live in Panama.

Regarding the same French topic, I found on facebook an interesting literary contact named Veronique de M. She has published an open letter about a libellous book where an ex-lover of the present president describe her frustration at the break-up.

As an editor
She writes; “My job is to be an editor, I help to give birth to literature. I am a kind of midwife, and I know a lot about human desperation, through the drama of incest, vitriolic statements, alcoholism, depression, burnout, cheating, scams and fraud. I usually receive texts which perspire the suffering of those who wrote them. My work is to receive this magma of suffering and to change them into books. All my authors are in a state of post-traumatic disorders, as Valerie Trierweiler, shouting their pain and persuaded that only a book can alleviate their suffering. You probably know, no book alleviate suffering, it is just an element on a path to recovery. When I follow an author, my work is to change a navel-gazing, narcissist and childish manuscript (when we suffer we are always childish) into a text that explain, share, with background and without vain attacks, and with a convenient literary quality even if not talented. “

And this is nicely describing an editor's job, at least applied to non-fictional narrative.

If culture is turning suffering into stories...then suffering is not only redeemed by God but also by literature. Maybe.

It's defeinitely food for my thoughts.