Încărcare
Găsiți următoarea book favorită
Deveniți un membru astăzi și citiți gratuit pentru 30 zileÎncepeți perioada gratuită de 30 zileInformații despre carte
Never Play With Death
Până la Hans Trujillo
Acțiuni carte
Începeți să citițiLungime: 237 pagini3 ore
- Editor:
- Adelaide Books Publishers
- Lansat:
- Aug 10, 2020
- ISBN:
- 9781953510051
- Format:
- Carte
Descriere
“An astonishing story where reality and fiction converge, creating a grandiose universe that is unexpected and truly original. Never Play with Death is a literary piece that does not come around very often...Hans captivates the reader and maintains their interest throughout this fantastic journey, where a countryside photographer decides to delve into the dark recesses of death by way of his art. The duel between the photographer and Death at the end of the story is epic, memorable, and totally unexpected.” - Víctor Gaviria (Award-winning filmmaker)
Informații despre carte
Never Play With Death
Până la Hans Trujillo
Lungime: 237 pagini3 ore
Descriere
“An astonishing story where reality and fiction converge, creating a grandiose universe that is unexpected and truly original. Never Play with Death is a literary piece that does not come around very often...Hans captivates the reader and maintains their interest throughout this fantastic journey, where a countryside photographer decides to delve into the dark recesses of death by way of his art. The duel between the photographer and Death at the end of the story is epic, memorable, and totally unexpected.” - Víctor Gaviria (Award-winning filmmaker)
- Editor:
- Adelaide Books Publishers
- Lansat:
- Aug 10, 2020
- ISBN:
- 9781953510051
- Format:
- Carte
Despre autor
HANS TRUJILLO Born in Bogota, Colombia, six days before Neil Armstrong would land his feet on the moon. Since he was a child his parents taught him the love for literature, and at an early age he devoured the immortal works of Homer, Cervantes, Wilde, Alan Poe and Garcia Marquez. His artistic vein took him to study advertising and, since 1994 he put his creative talent at the service of important advertising agencies in Colombia. In 1999 he moves to USA to continue his career in some of the best Hispanic advertising agencies of Los Angeles, Houston, and Miami, where he lives now. His outstanding career has memorable advertising campaigns and audiovisual pieces for a wide array of products, some of which have been awarded prestigious advertising prizes in the United States and Latin America. Hans has also explored other artistic expressions directing commercials for television, short films, and music videos. Never Play With Death is the novel with which Hans Trujillo makes his debut in the literary genre, bursting with a work full of life experiences, anecdotes collected over the years and a very particular charge of imagination that makes his story a fascinating one.
Legat de Never Play With Death
Mostră carte
Never Play With Death - Hans Trujillo
NEVER PLAY WITH DEATH
NEVER PLAY WITH DEATH
A novel
by
HANS TRUJILLO
Adelaide Books
New York/Lisbon
2020
NEVER PLAY WITH DEATH
A novel by Hans Trujillo
Copyright © by Hans Trujillo
Published by Adelaide Books, New York / Lisbon
adelaidebooks.org
Editor-in-Chief
Stevan V. Nikolic
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any
manner whatsoever without written permission from the author except
in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
For any information, please address Adelaide Books
at info@adelaidebooks.org or write to:
Adelaide Books
244 Fifth Ave. Suite D27
New York, NY, 10001
ISBN: 978-1-953510-05-1
Collaborator: Amanda Garay / agaray@zonaa.com.co
Cover: Photographer: Juan Manuel García / Models: Mauro Clavijo,
Ri-cardo Cucariano. / Producer: Dina Orjuela / Makeup Artist: Olga
Turrini / Art Direction: Juan Carlos Piedrahíta, Demian Nájera /
Creative Direction: Hans Trujillo.
English translation by: Hannah Breckner –
hannah@brecknertranslations.com
This literary work has been registered with the Colombian Ministry of
the Interior and Justice. National Directorate of Copyright: Unpublished
Literary Work. File Number: 1-2016-55276. The Writers Guild of
America, Intellectual Property. Registry. Reg. No.: 2003122. And the
United States Copyright Office. No.: 1-3806007081. All rights reserved.
Never Play With Death is a work of fiction in which certain characters are
inspired by real individuals, with whom they also share names,
personality traits and life experiences. Nevertheless, throughout the novel
they are treated as fictitious characters. The author has given himself
total freedom at all times during the tale, whereby the events narrated do
not correspond to real life.
To Fiorella
To my father, who taught me how to love literature like he did.
To my mother, an avid reader of any book that comes her way,
and who encouraged me to do the same.
To my sister, the warrior, who taught us to never give up.
And to Fiorella, my daughter. My guiding light.
My eternal inspiration.
To all of you… Thank you.
CONTENTS
Advance Praise
I. A City In Flames
II. This Is Going To Be My Home
III. The Perspicacity Of Ninfa
IV. Fotolino’s Photography Studio
V. How To Conceive A Girl
VI. The Dead Can Smile Too
VII. Bertha’s Dilemma
VIII. Carmen Through The Filter
IX. Simona’s Decision
X. Santuario Belongs To Us
XI. Death Is A Bad Loser
About the Author
ADVANCE PRAISE
When Never Play with Death
reached my hands, it found me at a very convoluted moment in my life; I was about to release my new movie and so I was practically living on a plane, sleeping very few hours and jumping from festival to festival, presenting my new work on the big screen.
And although I love the exciting task of discovering new and fantastic stories from unknown writers, the truth is that at that particular time I would have never taken the time to read this novel, if not for Amanda, a great friend who put the book in my hands, and with six words I baited the hook: Read it ... It will inspire you.
Who could resist? So, I put it under my arm and took it wherever I traveled, knowing very well I might not have the opportunity to even open it. However, on a trip to a film festival in Chile, I took advantage of the almost eight-hour flight plus, an unusual boost of energy I had to confirm if what my friend had told me was true, or just baloney
.
What I discovered in the first 20 pages blew my mind. The author decides to begin the work by making a fantastic historical review of The Bogotazo
, describing with exquisite details how Bogota was on April 9, 1,948. He also profiles Jorge Eliécer Gaitán who is a key character in such event, and then, reflects on the dire repercussions from the assassination of the liberal leader in Colombia’s history, and how different the course of our country would have been if none of it had happened. So far so good, considering that if you are Colombian, you surely know that story still. But what really surprised me were those fictional breaks in the story that make it feel like if listening to it for the first time. The fact that Juan Roa Sierra is now an innocent victim of these events is already refreshing, given he has insistently been portrayed as the bad guy. Then, the brilliant appearance of Death
in his guest role (as if it never had been), made my imagination spin.
I must confess that after reading the first chapter, the book simply didn’t let me go. For the first time in my life I wanted an eight-hour flight to last much longer, despite how much I hate flying and knowing that I wouldn’t have time once I set foot in Santiago. So, I practically spent my eight hours devouring this original story, which had me in suspense as the chapters unfolded. By the time I landed in Chile, I had already read three quarters of the book. I had already met Don Baudelino Pinto, a charismatic photographer with a sweeping personality. Then, several other interesting characters who jolt the story in an organic and creative way. Names as peculiar as Don Medásculo, or Tiberio the gravedigger, with his two daughters taken from the underworld. Ninfa, the photographer’s wife and her obsession with having a girl, until Simona is born, who is quite possibly my favorite character in the novel.
While in Chile, caught in between so many meetings, interviews and cocktails, the enigmatic characters and cinematic stories of the novel came rushing back to my mind. On the return flight, I fully immersed myself in the last three chapters. If the beginning was amazing and the development of the story had me in suspense, the finale really stunned me. Not only because of the originality with which the author involves a familiar character to all of us, Tirofijo
, but also in the surprising way he makes us identifies with him. Then, the unexpected ending of a duel between Death
and the photographer is really masterful. As a filmmaker I could almost imagine the scene projected on a movie screen, by the amazing way Hans describes every detail, injecting a high load of emotion to the story, that despite being pure fantasy made me doubt if it could happen in real life.
It had been a long time since a literary work surprised me like that. Not only for its literary richness, but also for its originality. I was so impressed that when I got back to Bogota, I proudly offered to write this prologue for Hans Trujillo’s first literary work, which I am sure will become one of the most original novels in recent Colombian literature. To Hans, I give all my respects as a writer and predict he’ll enjoy great success in his nascent literary career. Welcome to the world of letters my dear Hans.
VICTOR GAVIRIA
Award-winning filmmaker.
When a man creates things with
such vigorous enthusiasm, he emits an energy
that connects him to a mystical world,
where other powers begin to flow.
–Federico Fellini.
I.
A CITY IN FLAMES
If you had seen the character from this story, riding his scrawny mule down the country road that leads to Santuario that sunny Sunday morning, you probably would have been stunned for a moment, not realizing exactly what it was about this traveler that had caught your attention. It wasn’t the fact that he was dressed in a particularly eccentric way; on the contrary, he was wearing an old poncho that fortunately covered most of his tired-looking suit that alluded to days gone by. Nor was it the two leather suitcases stuffed full of dreams that the mule was reluctantly hauling on its back. It wasn’t the two black wooden trunks that conjured up morbid thoughts simply by glancing at them. Rather, it was the camera’s tripod poking out from the large amount of visual information being displayed by the horseman, his mule and the improvised mess they were transporting.
–Who on earth is this person? –you surely would’ve asked yourself.
Well, that’s assuming you’re an ordinary farmer from Colombia’s coffee region during the early 1950’s, and that you hadn’t been to any big cities recently, where you would have been exposed to the marvelous, but still unknown, art of photography. Lens, focus, diaphragm, shutter, developing, TRIPOD. When would a mule driver like you (assuming you were one), or any other inhabitant of this beautiful town etched far into the mountains, ever have heard any of these terms before? Someone like you only hears words like milling, roasting, coffee grounds and beneficiadero (1). But, swinging from the hips of that scraggy mule, was a device you had never seen before in your life. It was also just as unlikely that you would figure out that this stranger barging into the vicinity of Santuario, would go on to become the most influential person of the region, thanks to his unique power of freezing moments in time and capturing them on paper forever.
Every now and again, the mysterious man riding atop the mule peaks out furtively from under his hat to confirm whether the vulture that had been flying up above for quite a while now, close enough to make him feel uneasy, was still there. The stranger approaches a waterfall that forms a small stream on the side of the road. He struggles to dismount after what seems like a lifetime on the back of his loyal but worn-out mule, which responds to the name Ramona. After stretching his achy back, which makes him groan in agony, he takes off his hat and sees the light of day for the first time; the sun’s rays penetrating straight into his piercing hazel eyes, instinctively contracting his pupils like two diaphragms allowing to let in the least amount of light possible.
Baudelino Pinto was this stranger’s name; although he prefers to go by Lino
, a nickname given to him by his mother to avoid calling him by his first name, one she hated but had had to accept because at that time, the father chose the name when the baby was a boy. Anyway, none of this will matter further down the line because you will see how the complex twists and turns of this story, will wind up making him much better known as Fotolino.
That morning, next to that spring trickling down from a barren plain more frozen than a lifeless soul, Lino strips off all of his clothes apart from his underwear, and starts to splash water over his head while grumbling about the unbearable temperature. He then washes his face, body and arms at lightning speed. Next, he decides to bathe himself in the sun for fifteen minutes, his arms outstretched to let the welcoming rays and cold wind from the mountain dry his body in the distinctive way that vultures do, exactly like the one that was still watching over him from above. Once dry, he opens one of his suitcases and puts on an impeccable brown suit; combs his hair using a small mirror propped up on the nook of a tree and finally, puts on an elegant wide-brimmed hat adorned with a black ribbon.
After cramming all of his belongings back onto Ramona, Lino secures the saddle by yanking the belt forcefully, cinching the hinny and almost popping Ramona’s eyes out. He is now ready to continue on his way, keeping his eyes on the town between the mountains in the not too far distance. Just before climbing back onto the mule, he finds a photograph in the pocket of one of his suitcases. The photo is of a deathly pale man, dressed impeccably in white, walking through an excited crowd as he smiles slyly at the camera. Lino observes the photo carefully with his penetrating hazel eyes. His gaze loses itself on the horizon, remembering the events of that fateful day when he snapped that photograph with his camera.
It took place the morning of April 9, 1948 in Bogota. On that day, Colombia’s twinkling capital, that had burst in defiantly below the Eastern hills of the Altiplano Cundiboyacense (2) with the majestic nobility of a typical European province, would be lost forever due to the events that unraveled at the city center around midday, right on the corner of Carrera Séptima and Avenida Jiménez. These events represented a turning point in the country’s development over the subsequent 68 years.
If you, dear reader, have been to Bogota today, you should know that it’s nothing like it was back then. At that time, it was a city that radiated nobility, with its immaculate trams full of impeccably-dressed men; its Renaissance fountains adorning Plaza de Bolívar, and all of its parks popping out between street corners, and colonial houses adorned with grand balconies and blooming eaves. Perhaps the only thing that has stayed intact between the Bogota of ’48 and the one of today is its antiquated expression of social hierarchies in the urban landscape. With its arrogant upper class settled in the north of the city, the middle class in the center, and the marginalized lower class left to its own fate in the extensive southern sector. It’s as if there were three cities belonging to countries with different destinies, each one wedged into the other like a jigsaw puzzle; strictly characterized by the style of their houses, the condition of their streets and the degree of their inhabitants happiness or despair.
The differences between the social classes were so noticeable, that only a few aristocratic families were actually considered true Bogotanians
. The city belonged to them and it was for them. Last names like Urrutia, Carrizosa, Uribe, Sáenz, Vargas, Caballero, De Brigard, Pombo and Holguín were the elite of the capital’s society for as long as anyone could remember. Anyone else whose last name did not bear the necessary lineage was considered a foreigner, as if they didn’t belong in the capital. The purebred people of Bogota thought of themselves as the master race, with their glowing complexions, spurred on by the best single malts from Scotland, or the icy savanna air where they owned estates overflowing with butlers who always had to look up to listen to their masters giving orders from their balconies. Around that time, Bogota was getting ready to host the 9th Pan-American Conference, the first large pan-regional diplomatic event to take place on Colombian soil. The national government therefore went to great lengths to embellish the city and prepare a fairy-tale welcome for the illustrious guests that would come from all corners of the continent. One of these guests was General Marshall, someone that Colombians had only seen on the pages of newspapers in the reports about the Iliadic crusades of the Americans in the Second World War. Among the works was a luxurious discotheque named El Venado de Oro
, with two dance floors and an endless amount of prostitutes available to entertain the most prudish diplomats of the region.
All of this circus paraphernalia was in dramatic contrast to the crude reality being lived by the rest of the country, who has been hit with a relentless summer that had practically dried up the Magdalena River, the femoral artery of the Colombian economy via which most food and supplies reached different regions of the republic. This caused a rise in costs of food, clothing, basic goods and public services. In Bogota, in particular, the taxi drivers went on strike, due to the lack of gasoline that was usually transported downstream from Barranquilla. This nonconformist attempt was simply a preamble to what was brewing among the county’s least fortunate classes, which, when added to the tense backdrop of the official violence supported by the conservative government and counteracted by the liberal opposition, turned into a ticking time bomb that was about to blow it all to pieces.
The contrast between the widespread poverty and the excessive wasteful spending by the government to prepare the city and add sparkle to the Pan-American conference, caused a great deal of dissidence among the capital’s disregarded lower classes. To add to this, the government, when forming the Colombian delegation made up by representatives from the government and the opposition, had the nerve to exclude Doctor Jorge Eliecer Gaitán, head of the Liberal party and leading representative of the country’s working classes.
Son of a bookseller and a teacher, Gaitán was a brilliant lawyer and an experienced politician who personified the hopes of the whole nation. An excellent public speaker, he was able to explain the most incomprehensible political theories of European thinkers in simple terms that were understood by the masses. He was a dedicated reader and had an insatiable thirst for the latest political trends, never caring where they came from. Jorge Eliecer’s enviable academic background and experience led him to giving university lectures in various law and political science faculties across Bogota, turning him into a bastion of knowledge for every student that was lucky enough to sit before him in a classroom. A great admirer of Sir Winston Churchill, he often took a lot of his famous quotes and used them in political gatherings or social events, always making sure to give the Prime Minister his due credit. But without question, the best quality of Mr. Gaitán was his unspeakable resolve in turning himself into the unwavering communicator of the people’s wishes.
Baudelino Pinto, who at the time made a living taking clandestine photographs of lovers wandering around the capital’s streets, or, if he was lucky, of some political or national figure who was parading around hoping to be recognized, was walking down a very busy street close to the Carrera Séptima with his good friend Juan Roa Sierra. As per usual, Pinto was carrying his photography equipment while Roa held a newspaper under one arm, and with his characteristic enthusiasm, he turns to Baudelino and says,
–…and, when I realized I was standing just behind him. Can you believe it? Doctor Jorge Eliecer Gaitán in the
Ați ajuns la finalul acestei mostre. Înregistrați-vă pentru a citi mai mult!
Pagina 1 din 1
Recenzii
Recenzii
Ce cred oamenii despre Never Play With Death
0Evaluare: 0 din 5 stele
0 evaluări / 0 recenzii
Ce părere aveți?
Evaluare: din 5 stele