Vivir de la música

Durante el confinamiento he leído el libro de Beatrix Borchard "Clara Schumann Musik als Lebensform". El libro se puede encontrar en la Biblioteca del Goethe Institut Barcelona. Clara era una gran pianista, compositora, y se ganó por mérito propio el respeto de sus colegas. Joachim y Brahms, sus amigos, apoyaron y guiaron a Clara una vez fallecido su marido Robert. En aquella época (Clara nació el 1819 y murió el 1896) las mujeres no tenían voz propia en la industria de la música. Ella estuvo primero bajo el amparo de su padre, luego de su marido, y en la viudez de sus amigos, en quienes ella confiaba. La relación de igualdad que mantuvo con ellos dentro de la industria de la música era única, en el sentido de que otras mujeres que deseaban entrar en ella y ganar su salario en base a conciertos era en aquella época inviable. Hoy en día esto ha cambiado, y en parte es gracias a mujeres como Clara, que con inteligencia supo abrirse camino y ganarse la vida a través de la música.

Negra Memòria

 Last September, at the Barcelona Maritime Museum Book club, we met online to chat with the writer Mireia Vancells to talk about her roman "Negra Memòria". It literally means "Black Memory", however, if we read the book, we can say that the meaning could be more " Dark Memory". I'll explain you why.

This is the story of silence, the silence we keep when we have done or experienced actions (slavery, incest, rape, aggression, assoult), and we are ashamed of it, so we try to hide those behaviors, we stop talking about it, the subject is taboo.

 The autor remembers the first time she heard about slavery in El Masnou, small town here in Catalonia (Spain). Every time she read about slavery, she thought that only happened in the USA, never imagined that Catalonia might have played a role in that history.

It was 2008 the first time Mireia heard about someone who have worked transporting slaves in a ship. It took her only 6 months to write this precious story. Readers can picture the inn where the main character worked as young man, we can smell the slave ship miles away, we feel the breeze in Puerto Rico, all that thanks to the research Mireia did about that time. She used a lot the Unesco Website: The slave route. Also about the tasty food: she highly recommended the book "La cuynera catalana" Warning: do not read this roman hungry, you'll end up cooking at home the recipes of this last book ;).

She pictures slavery through the eyes of someone who witnessed it, who saw and kept silence. In the book club we talked about slavery because we feel that we need to break that silence, we need to raise awareness, raise our voices, we need to understand that there is no "Happy ending" if we are not able to see eye to eye and to take action to stop slavery. Our economic system, in the XXI century, still approves forced labor, and we all close our eyes, it is taboo. We are ashamed, we feel angry and helpless. Still, there is hope when we are able to read such breakhearting story like this one Mireia wrote. Let's face it, and start talking and taking action about it.

  This book "Negra Memòria" is essential, I highly recommend it to the #BlackLivesMatter followers. Regrettably, it is only available in Spanish and Catalan. I hope some publisher will take the chance to translate it into English, it is worth it.