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Madurar hacia la infancia: Relatos y dibujos
El 19 de noviembre de 1942, en el gueto de Dorhóbych, el pequeño pueblo austrohúngaro, hoy ucraniano, del que apenas había salido desde su nacimiento en 1892, muere asesinado por un SS Bruno Schulz, hoy considerado uno de los mayores escritores del siglo XX por la densidad poética de su prosa, la forma en que convierte el lenguaje en un acto de magia y, sobre todo, por la experiencia sin retorno de leerlo o de entrar en el universo lúgubre de sus dibujos.
Si alguien considera que el anterior párrafo resulta una exageración, sólo debe abrir este volumen, cuya primera edición en 2008 supuso una reivindicación de este artista total, y leer «Las tiendas de color canela» o «Sanatorio bajo la clepsidra», donde, según las palabras expresadas en el prólogo de Francesco M. Cataluccio, «metamorfosis, disfraces, viajes en el espacio y en el tiempo se superponen con el auxilio de una lengua poética rebosante de metáforas».
«Figura mítica cada vez más recuperada y reivindicada, en esos cánones cambiantes que evolucionan y se desplazan sin cesar con los gustos y tendencias de cada época y que ahora mismo lo sitúan, de pleno derecho, junto a otros grandes del siglo XX como Kafka, Nabokov, Pessoa, Musil o Robert Walser […]; un mito que tiene mucho que ver con el carácter metafísico, grotesco y enigmático, absolutamente singular, de su obra, tanto de la literaria como de la pictórica —carácter que lo emparenta con artistas como Goya, Alfred Kubin o Egon Schiele—». Mercedes Monmany
Si alguien considera que el anterior párrafo resulta una exageración, sólo debe abrir este volumen, cuya primera edición en 2008 supuso una reivindicación de este artista total, y leer «Las tiendas de color canela» o «Sanatorio bajo la clepsidra», donde, según las palabras expresadas en el prólogo de Francesco M. Cataluccio, «metamorfosis, disfraces, viajes en el espacio y en el tiempo se superponen con el auxilio de una lengua poética rebosante de metáforas».
«Figura mítica cada vez más recuperada y reivindicada, en esos cánones cambiantes que evolucionan y se desplazan sin cesar con los gustos y tendencias de cada época y que ahora mismo lo sitúan, de pleno derecho, junto a otros grandes del siglo XX como Kafka, Nabokov, Pessoa, Musil o Robert Walser […]; un mito que tiene mucho que ver con el carácter metafísico, grotesco y enigmático, absolutamente singular, de su obra, tanto de la literaria como de la pictórica —carácter que lo emparenta con artistas como Goya, Alfred Kubin o Egon Schiele—». Mercedes Monmany
532 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2008
6 people are currently reading
133 people want to read
About the author
Bruno Schulz
121 books723 followersBruno Schulz was a Polish writer, fine artist, literary critic and art teacher of Jewish descent. He was regarded as one of the great Polish-language prose stylists of the 20th century.
At a very early age, Schulz developed an interest in the arts. He studied at a gymnasium in Drohobycz from 1902 to 1910, and proceeded to study architecture at Lwów University. In 1917 he briefly studied architecture in Vienna. After World War I, the region of Galicia which included Drohobycz became a Polish territory. In the postwar period, Schulz came to teach drawing in a Polish gymnasium, from 1924 to 1941. His employment kept him in his hometown, although he disliked his profession as a schoolteacher, apparently maintaining it only because it was his sole means of income.
The author nurtured his extraordinary imagination in a swarm of identities and nationalities: a Jew who thought and wrote in Polish, was fluent in German, and immersed in Jewish culture though unfamiliar with the Yiddish language. Yet there was nothing cosmopolitan about him; his genius fed in solitude on specific local and ethnic sources. He preferred not to leave his provincial hometown, which over the course of his life belonged to four countries. His adult life was often perceived by outsiders as that of a hermit: uneventful and enclosed.
Schulz seems to have become a writer by chance, as he was discouraged by influential colleagues from publishing his first short stories. His aspirations were refreshed, however, when several letters that he wrote to a friend, in which he gave highly original accounts of his solitary life and the details of the lives of his fellow citizens, were brought to the attention of the novelist Zofia Nałkowska. She encouraged Schulz to have them published as short fiction, and The Cinnamon Shops (Sklepy Cynamonowe) was published in 1934; in English-speaking countries, it is most often referred to as The Street of Crocodiles, a title derived from one of the chapters. This novel-memoir was followed three years later by Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass (Sanatorium Pod Klepsydrą). The original publications were fully illustrated by Schulz himself; in later editions of his works, however, these illustrations are often left out or are poorly reproduced. He also helped his fiancée translate Franz Kafka's The Trial into Polish, in 1936. In 1938, he was awarded the Polish Academy of Literature's prestigious Golden Laurel award.
The outbreak of World War II in 1939 caught Schulz living in Drohobycz, which was occupied by the Soviet Union. There are reports that he worked on a novel called The Messiah, but no trace of this manuscript survived his death. Following the German invasion of the Soviet Union, as a Jew he was forced to live in the ghetto of Drohobycz, but he was temporarily protected by Felix Landau, a Gestapo officer who admired his drawings. During the last weeks of his life, Schulz painted a mural in Landau's home in Drohobycz, in the style with which he is identified. Shortly after completing the work, Schulz was bringing home a loaf of bread when he was shot and killed by a German officer, Karl Günther, a rival of his protector (Landau had killed Günther's "personal Jew," a dentist). Over the years his mural was covered with paint and forgotten.
Source: wikipedia.com
At a very early age, Schulz developed an interest in the arts. He studied at a gymnasium in Drohobycz from 1902 to 1910, and proceeded to study architecture at Lwów University. In 1917 he briefly studied architecture in Vienna. After World War I, the region of Galicia which included Drohobycz became a Polish territory. In the postwar period, Schulz came to teach drawing in a Polish gymnasium, from 1924 to 1941. His employment kept him in his hometown, although he disliked his profession as a schoolteacher, apparently maintaining it only because it was his sole means of income.
The author nurtured his extraordinary imagination in a swarm of identities and nationalities: a Jew who thought and wrote in Polish, was fluent in German, and immersed in Jewish culture though unfamiliar with the Yiddish language. Yet there was nothing cosmopolitan about him; his genius fed in solitude on specific local and ethnic sources. He preferred not to leave his provincial hometown, which over the course of his life belonged to four countries. His adult life was often perceived by outsiders as that of a hermit: uneventful and enclosed.
Schulz seems to have become a writer by chance, as he was discouraged by influential colleagues from publishing his first short stories. His aspirations were refreshed, however, when several letters that he wrote to a friend, in which he gave highly original accounts of his solitary life and the details of the lives of his fellow citizens, were brought to the attention of the novelist Zofia Nałkowska. She encouraged Schulz to have them published as short fiction, and The Cinnamon Shops (Sklepy Cynamonowe) was published in 1934; in English-speaking countries, it is most often referred to as The Street of Crocodiles, a title derived from one of the chapters. This novel-memoir was followed three years later by Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass (Sanatorium Pod Klepsydrą). The original publications were fully illustrated by Schulz himself; in later editions of his works, however, these illustrations are often left out or are poorly reproduced. He also helped his fiancée translate Franz Kafka's The Trial into Polish, in 1936. In 1938, he was awarded the Polish Academy of Literature's prestigious Golden Laurel award.
The outbreak of World War II in 1939 caught Schulz living in Drohobycz, which was occupied by the Soviet Union. There are reports that he worked on a novel called The Messiah, but no trace of this manuscript survived his death. Following the German invasion of the Soviet Union, as a Jew he was forced to live in the ghetto of Drohobycz, but he was temporarily protected by Felix Landau, a Gestapo officer who admired his drawings. During the last weeks of his life, Schulz painted a mural in Landau's home in Drohobycz, in the style with which he is identified. Shortly after completing the work, Schulz was bringing home a loaf of bread when he was shot and killed by a German officer, Karl Günther, a rival of his protector (Landau had killed Günther's "personal Jew," a dentist). Over the years his mural was covered with paint and forgotten.
Source: wikipedia.com
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
July 29, 2016
Madurar hacia la infancia reúne prácticamente todos los textos que se conservan de Bruno Schulz, tanto los dos libros que alcanzó a publicar en vida (Las tiendas de color canela y Sanatorio bajo la clepsidra), como el relato "El cometa" que sólo se publicó en la revista Skamander, las cartas con Gombrowicz, una entrevista que le hicieron a propósito de Las tiendas..., reseñas literarias y artículos en los que se puede percibir su gran sensibilidad artística, y el Libro idólatra, conjunto de ilustraciones inquietantes en las que el propio Schulz aparece siempre en situaciones de voluntario sometimiento frente a hermosas mujeres de largas piernas, por lo general desnudas y con ademanes sumamente desdeñosos. Un volumen para coleccionistas y aficionados a uno de los más grandes prosistas del siglo XX.
May 13, 2020
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Sanatorio bajo la clepsidra
Sanatorio bajo la clepsidra
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews