Sproetenkoppen van Hugo Hamilton is bijna uit…
Op internet vond ik een essay van Hugo Hamilton over zijn boek The Speckled People waarin hij het relaas doet van zijn verwarrende jeugdjaren in een Iers-Duits gezin in Dublin jaren ’50-60′.
(…)In my book The Speckled People, I describe how we had no idea what country we belonged to.
‘You don’t know where you are, or who you are, or what questions to ask.’
We had the Germany that my mother was often homesick for. We had the ancient, Irish Ireland that my father aspired to go back to with such ruthless dedication and self-sacrifice, to the point that he used us as his weapons, his foot soldiers in a language war.
And finally, outside our hall door on the street was a different, far away country, where I could hear the gardener ‘clipping the hedges in English.’ (…)
My mother dressed us in Lederhosen and my father, not to be outdone, bought us Aran sweaters from the west of Ireland. So we were Irish on top and German below. We were ‘the homesick children,’ struggling from a very early age with the idea of identity and conflicting notions of Irish history and German history (…)
Bron: http://www.powells.com
Dus Hugo Hamilton is een Ierse schrijver? Dan ga ik hem eens checken. Nog nooit bedrogen uitgekomen met onze schrijvende vrienden uit Ulster.