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REGALO DE NAVIDAD: Paul Auster

Por 24 de diciembre de 2009 Sin comentarios

Eder. Óleo de Irene Gracia

Iván Thays

Como un regalo navideño a los lectores de Moleskine Literario, les ofrezco este especial gráfico aparecido en The Guardian titulado: Auggie Wren’s Christmas Story por Paul Auster, illustrated por ISOL y editado por Faber and Faber. ‘Auggie and I have known each other for close to eleven years now. He works behind the counter of a cigar store on Court Street in downtown Brooklyn, and since it’s the only store that carries the little Dutch cigars I like to smoke, I go in there fairly often.»It turned out that Auggie considered himself an artist … As I flipped through the photo albums and began to study Auggie’s work, I didn’t know what to think … all the pictures were the same.»He suddenly interrupted me and said, «You’re going too fast. You’ll never get it if you don’t slow down.» He was right of course. If you don’t take the time to look, you’ll never manage to see anything.»Earlier that same week, a man from the New York Times called me and asked if I would be willing to write a short story that would appear in the paper on Christmas morning… I told him I would give it a try. The moment I hung up the phone, however, I fell into a deep panic.»I found myself unburdening my troubles to Auggie. «A Christmas story?» he said after I had finished. «Is that all? If you buy me lunch I’ll tell you the best Christmas story you ever heard.»‘ ‘»It was the summer of seventy-two,» he said. «I don’t think I’ve ever seen a more pathetic shoplifter in my life … He took off like a jackrabbit … I chased after him for about half a block, and then I gave up. He’d dropped something along the way, and since I didn’t feel like running any more, I bent down to see what it was. It turned out to be his wallet … Robert Goodwin. That was his name. … I felt kind of sorry for him.’ ‘»Every once in a while I’d get a little urge to send it back to him, but I kept delaying and never did anything about it. Then Christmas rolls around and I’m stuck with nothing to do.»‘ ‘»I finally get to the apartment I’m looking for and ring the bell. Nothing happens. I assume no one’s there … and just when I’m about to give up, I hear someone shuffling to the door … ‘Is that you Robert?'»‘»She has to be at least eighty, maybe ninety years old, and the first thing I notice about her is that she’s blind. ‘I knew you’d come, Robert,’ she says. ‘I knew you wouldn’t forget your Granny Ethel on Christmas.'»»»What I did next was positively crazy and I’ve never forgiven myself for it. I go into the bathroom and stacked up against the wall next to the shower, I see a pile of six or seven cameras. Brand-new thirty-five-millimetre cameras, still in their boxes … I figure this is the work of the real Robert.»‘»I felt so bad about stealing the camera, I hadn’t even used it yet. I finally made up my mind to return it, but Ethel wasn’t there anymore.»‘ ‘»And now you’ve got your Christmas story, don’t you?»

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Iván Thays

Iván Thays es escritor peruano (Lima, 1968) autor de las novelas "El viaje interior" y "La disciplina de la vanidad". Premio Principe Claus 2000. Dirigió el programa literario de TV Vano Oficio por 7 años. Ha sido elegido como uno de los esccritores latinoamericanos más importantes menores de 39 años por el Hay Festival, organizador del Bogotá39. Finalista del Premio Herralde del 2008 con la novela "Un lugar llamado Oreja de perro".

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