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Giannina Braschi citations

Giannina Braschi , est une poétesse et romancière portoricaine de renom qui écrit en anglais, espagnol et spanglish. Professeure d'espagnol, elle est l'auteure de cinq recueils de poésie et a reçu de nombreux prix. Wikipedia  

✵ 5. février 1953
Giannina Braschi: 37 citations0 J'aime

Giannina Braschi: Citations en anglais

“If you look for an identity you find inequality. If you look for similarities you separate one truth from another.”

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Giannina Braschi

Giannina Braschi, in United States of Banana, 2011

“Poetry must find ways of breaking distance.”

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Giannina Braschi livre Yo-Yo Boing!

Yo-Yo Boing! (Spanglish novel, 1998)
Contexte: If I respected languages like you do, I wouldn't write at all. El muro de Berlín fue derribado. Why can't I do the same? Desde la torre de Babel, las lenguas han sido siempre una forma de divorciarnos del resto de la humanidad. Poetry must find ways of breaking distance. I'm not reducing my audience. On the contrary, I'm going to have a bigger audience with the common markets — in Europe — in America. And besides, all languages are dialects that are made to break new grounds. I feel like Dante, Petrarca and Boccaccio, and I even feel like Garcilaso forging a new language. Saludo al nuevo siglo, el siglo del nuevo lenguaje de América, y le digo adiós a la retórica separatista y a los atavismos.

“Banks are the temples of America. This is a holy war. Our economy is our religion.”

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Giannina Braschi livre United States of Banana

United States of Banana (2011)

“What does winter or autumn or spring or summer know of memory. They know nothing of memory. They know that seasons pass and return. They know that they are seasons. That they are time. And they know how to affirm themselves. And they know how to impose themselves. And they know how to maintain themselves, What does autumn know of summer. What sorrows do seasons have. None hate. None love. They just pass.”

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Giannina Braschi

Empire of Dreams (prose poetry, 1988)

“I saw a torso falling--no legs--no head--just a torso. I am redundant because I can’t believe what I saw. I saw a torso falling--no legs--no head--just a torso--tumbling in the air--dressed in a bright white shirt--the shirt of the businessman--tucked in--neatly--under the belt--snugly fastened--holding up his pants that had no legs. He had hit a steel girder--and he was dead--dead for a ducat, dead--on the floor of Krispy Krème--with powdered donuts for a head--fresh out of the oven--crispy and round--hot and tasty--and this businessman--on the ground was clutching a briefcase in his hand--and on his finger, the wedding band. I suppose he thought his briefcase was his life--or his wife--or that both were one--because the briefcase was as tight in hand as the wedding band.”

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Giannina Braschi livre United States of Banana

United States of Banana (2011)

“Poets and anarchists are always the first to go.
—Where.
—To the frontline. Wherever it is.”

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Giannina Braschi livre Yo-Yo Boing!

Yo-Yo Boing! (Spanglish novel, 1998)

“When the Twin Towers fell—I felt a dentist had pulled out my two front teeth. I could not laugh anymore. And I have the smile of a smiling damned villain. But I also felt the hole in my mouth became a garage, and entering that garage were terrorists in trucks full of explosives and French diplomats—to f*ck us more with other nations—to run over our dead bodies.”

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Giannina Braschi livre United States of Banana

United States of Banana (2011)

“If you want to know what love is, have a child. If you want to know what pain is, bury him.”

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Giannina Braschi livre Yo-Yo Boing!

Yo-Yo Boing! (Spanglish novel, 1998)

“Read me, read me. Love me, love.”

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Giannina Braschi

Empire of Dreams (prose poetry, 1988)

“This is a vicious circle. This is the fishmarket. This is working for survival. This is survival of the fastest. This is the Darwinist capital of the capitalist world. A head afraid is a head haunted. A head haunted is a head hunted. Run for your life. Run from the guillotine to a head hunter who saves your head and raises your salary—so you’ll be caught in the red of the fishmarket buying gadgets to distract your fragile imagination that is cut in the red market of blood—running and escaping—running again—changing your resume to update the fear you feel of being unemployed tomorrow—in the streets—and from there to welfare—and from there to begging.”

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Giannina Braschi livre United States of Banana

United States of Banana (2011)

“And besides, all languages are dialects that are made to break new grounds.”

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Giannina Braschi livre Yo-Yo Boing!

Yo-Yo Boing! (Spanglish novel, 1998)
Contexte: If I respected languages like you do, I wouldn't write at all. El muro de Berlín fue derribado. Why can't I do the same? Desde la torre de Babel, las lenguas han sido siempre una forma de divorciarnos del resto de la humanidad. Poetry must find ways of breaking distance. I'm not reducing my audience. On the contrary, I'm going to have a bigger audience with the common markets — in Europe — in America. And besides, all languages are dialects that are made to break new grounds. I feel like Dante, Petrarca and Boccaccio, and I even feel like Garcilaso forging a new language. Saludo al nuevo siglo, el siglo del nuevo lenguaje de América, y le digo adiós a la retórica separatista y a los atavismos.

“I want to be free from freedom. Free.”

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Giannina Braschi livre United States of Banana

United States of Banana (2011)

“Poetry is this screaming madwoman.”

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Giannina Braschi

Empire of Dreams (prose poetry, 1988)

“Metaphors and Similes are the beginning of the democratic system of envy.”

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Giannina Braschi livre United States of Banana

United States of Banana (2011)

“I can understand Spanish but I can't understand Puerto Ricans.”

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Giannina Braschi livre Yo-Yo Boing!

Yo-Yo Boing! (Spanglish novel, 1998)
Variante: We have a similar problem. I can understand English, but I cannot understand Americans.

“Only what is fated to die is capable of living. Only what dies lives. Why do you think Christ was killed? They killed him to prove that he wasn’t a god. But in killing him, they immortalized the perishable and transformed man into a god.”

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Giannina Braschi

Empire of Dreams (prose poetry, 1988)

“The suicide bomber is an explosion of a contradiction in its paradox, victim and victimizer, yin and yang, two sides of the coin, fire bomb and fire extinguisher, prosecutor and defendant, hangman and hanged.”

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Giannina Braschi livre United States of Banana

United States of Banana (2011)

“The United States of America will become the United States of Banana. And Puerto Rico will be the first half-and-half banana republic state incorporated that will secede from the union. Then will come Liberty Island, then Mississippi Burning, Texas BBQ, Kentucky Fried Chicken—all of them—New York Yankees, Jersey Devils—you name it—will want to break apart—and demand a separation—a divorce. Things will not go well for the banana republic when the shackles and chains of democracy break loose and unleash the dogs of war. Separation—divorce—disintegration of subject matters that don’t matter anymore—only verbs—actions. Americans will walk like chickens with their heads cut off.”

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Giannina Braschi livre United States of Banana

United States of Banana (2011)

“I am egg and always will be, and we are eggs and always will be. Fried eggs. Or rotten eggs. Boiled eggs. Or scrambled eggs. Poached eggs. Or round eggs. Eggs. Eggs. Eggs.”

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Giannina Braschi

Empire of Dreams (prose poetry, 1988)

“I fear freedom. I, above all, fear the freedom that is above all feardom.”

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Giannina Braschi livre United States of Banana

United States of Banana (2011)

“Behind the word is silence, behind that silence is forgetfulness.”

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Giannina Braschi

Empire of Dreams (prose poetry, 1988)

“Freedom is a demagogue.”

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Giannina Braschi livre United States of Banana

United States of Banana (2011)

“English is a language of mass destruction. Lady Macbeth is a queen of mass destruction. Lear is a king of mass destruction. Hamlet is a prince of mass destruction. Shakespeare is a bard of mass destruction. And Moby Dick is a whale of mass destruction. Why are you a culture of death and destruction? Why do you obliterate villages, cities, and civilizations with your language of mass destruction? Is the destruction worth the destruction? For what purpose did you destroy my language? To impose the sovereignty of your rule of law with weapons of mass destruction—to then say: --I offer you my lifesaver. Now, we can communicate in the same language. English only, please.”

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Giannina Braschi livre United States of Banana

United States of Banana (2011)

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