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Excerpted from The Translator: A Tribesman's Memoir of Darfur by Daoud Hari, published by Random House.
Read by Sarah Baird: "I believe it is important, in this gloomy sub-zero weather, to be reminded of how fortunate I am, and how I really have no right to complain." Sarah is a prodigal Alaskan, back from five years of studying and working in Washington, D.C., and still dubious about her ability to survive the winters. She is the community coordinator for Anchorage Public Library's ANCHORAGE READS program, and hopes you will look out for upcoming events on the website.
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Daoud Hari grew up in the Darfur region of Sudan. In his book, The Translator, he describes the harrowing ordeal that followed his capture for associating with journalists:
"I watched the commander's finger pet the trigger. The gun muzzle was hot against my temple. Had he fired it recently, or was it just hot from the sun? I decided that if these were about to be my last thoughts, I should try some better ones instead. So I thought about my family and how I loved them and how I might see my brothers soon.
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The two commanders talked at length. I watched his trigger finger rise and fall like a cobra and then finally slither away. ...
To not get killed is a very good thing. It makes you smile again and again, foolishly, helplessly, for several hours. I was not shot -- humdallah."
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Taken from Last Night I Dreamed of Peace, the Diary Of Dang Thuy Tram, translated by Andrew Pham and published by Harmony Books.
Contributed and read by Linda Duck: "Like Dang Thuy Tram, I too dream of peace." Linda is a retired marketing executive currently working on an education in trauma psychology. She spends part of each year as an international humanitarian volunteer. Last spring, she found this book while taking a short respite in Hanoi from her work with Burmese refugees at Mae Tao Clinic. |
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Dang Thuy Tram was a 24-year-old doctor from Hanoi working south of the demilitarized zone during the Vietnam War. She kept a diary, which was recovered from her body after she was killed. In Last Night I Dreamed of Peace, she writes:
"Rain falls without respite. Rain deepens my sadness, its chill making me yearn for the warmth of a family reunion. If only I had wings to fly back to our beautiful house on Lo Duc Street, to eat with Dad, Mom, and my siblings, one simple meal with watercress and one night's sleep under the old cotton blanket. Last night I dreamed that Peace was established, I came back and saw everybody. Oh, the dream of Peace and Independence has burned in the hearts of thirty million people for so long. For Peace and Independence, we have sacrificed everything. So many people have volunteered to sacrifice their whole lives for two words: Independence and Liberty. I, too have sacrificed my life for that grandiose fulfillment."
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Taken from The Living of Charlotte Perkins Gilman by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, published by the University of Wisconsin Press.
Read by Sarah Mouracade: "I have found few things more valuable than considering new ideas and allowing them to challenge the ideas I do hold. This type of reflection may be prompted by a beautiful sky, a troublesome encounter, or a thoughtful discussion." Sarah is a wife, mother, and human rights activist who spent 2008 completing her Masters in English and working with Obama's Presidential Campaign. Sarah is a strong supporter of community organizing and hopes that you will invest in a cause that contributes to making the world a better place, such as Amnesty International USA. |
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In her autobiography, Charlotte Perkins Gilman describes the genesis of her personal philosophy about religion:
"It is told that Buddha, going out to look on life, was greatly daunted by death. 'They all eat one another!' he cried, and called it evil. This process I examined, changed the verb, said, 'They all feed one another,' and called it good....
As to pain--? I observed that the most important continuous functions of living are unconsciously carried on within us; that the most external ones, involving a change of activity on our part, as in obtaining food, and mating, are made desirable by pleasure; that just being alive is a pleasure; that pain does not come in unless something goes wrong. 'Fine!' said I. 'An admirable world. God is good.'"
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Excerpted from
Wilderness: A Journal of Quiet Adventure in Alaska by Rockwell Kent.
Read by Charles Money: "This passage about the Alaska experience is a favorite of mine. It deftly describes both the joy and fear inherent in exploring Alaska's wild lands, even today." Ten years ago, Charles' passion for public lands brought him, his wife Julie and their two boys, Nick and Ben, to Anchorage, where Charles serves as the Executive Director of Alaska Geographic, the state-wide educational nonprofit partner to Alaska's parks, forest and refuges. Charles invites you to share in the wonder of these lands at Alaska Geographic's website.
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In 1918, Rockwell Kent and his young son spent a long winter on Fox Island near Kenai Fjords. In his Wilderness: A Journal of Quiet Adventure in Alaska, Kent describes the isolation:
"These days are wonderful but they are terrible. It is thrilling now ... to reflect that we are absolutely cut off from all mankind, that we cannot, in this raging sea, return to the world nor the world come to us. Barriers must secure your isolation in order that you may experience the full significance of it. The romance of an adventure hangs upon slender threads. A banana [peel left] on a mountain top tames the wilderness. Much of the glory of this Alaska is in the knowledge I have that the next bay -- which I may never choose to enter -- is uninhabited, that beyond those mountains across the water is a vast region that no man has ever trodden, a terrible ice-bound wilderness."
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Taken from a January 27, 1904 letter in Letters to Friends, Family, and Editors by Franz Kafka, translated by Richard and Clara Winston, published by Schocken Books.
Contributed by Mark Zimmermann of the Washington, D.C. area. Read by Jerry Covey: "Our minds need exercise, just as our bodies do. We need to be challenged with new information that forces us to continually reconcile our understanding of ourselves. The following quote illustrates my point." Jerry Covey is an Anchorage-based consultant who specializes in working with non-profit organizations. His services include planning, communications training, leadership development, and mutual gains bargaining. Jerry's website. |
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In a letter to his friend Oskar Pollak, Franz Kafka wrote:
"I think we ought to read only the kind of books that wound and stab us. If the book we're reading doesn't wake us up with a blow on the head, what are we reading it for? So that it will make us happy...? Good Lord, we would be happy precisely if we had no books, and the kind of books that make us happy are the kind we could write ourselves if we had to. But we need the books that affect us like a disaster, that grieve us deeply, like the death of someone we loved more than ourselves, like being banished into forests far from everyone, like a suicide. A book must be the axe for the frozen sea inside us. That is my belief."
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