{"id":3027,"date":"2017-11-17T20:26:40","date_gmt":"2017-11-17T20:26:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.iwabogdani.org\/?p=576"},"modified":"2023-12-21T13:14:17","modified_gmt":"2023-12-21T13:14:17","slug":"xhevdet-bajraj-kosovomexico","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.iwabogdani.org\/sq\/xhevdet-bajraj-kosovomexico\/","title":{"rendered":"Xhevdet Bajraj, Kosovo\/M\u00e9xico"},"content":{"rendered":"<ul>\n<li><strong>Xhevdet Bajraj, Kosovo\/M\u00e9xico. Member of the Board<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Xhevdet Bajraj is a poet, dramatist, translator, and professor. His works of poetry, which total nearly twenty volumes, have been translated into English, German, Spanish, Danish, Serbian, Slovenian, Hungarian, Turkish, and Polish. He has been the recipient of many awards and honors, among them, the prize for best book of poetry (both in 1993 and 2000), conferred by the Kosovo Writers\u2019 Society; the Goliardos International Prize for Poetry in 2004; the 2010 Katarina Josipi award for best original drama written in Albanian; first prize at the Festival of Monodrama, Vlor\u00eb, Albania in 2013; and the award for the best book of poetry in 2015, presented at the Prishtina International Book Fair.<br \/>\nIn May of 1999, Bajraj and his family were deported from Kosovo. Through the International Parliament of Writers and their program for persecuted writers, he was granted asylum and a fellowship at the Casa Refugio Citlalt\u00e9petl in Mexico. In the years since, he has become a full professor of creative writing and literature at the Autonomous University of Mexico City and been inducted into the Sistema Nacional de Creadores de Arte. In a parallel artistic universe, he appeared as a co-star of Aro Tolbukhin, In the Mind of the Killer, an Ariel award-winning film and Mexico\u2019s submission to the 2003 Oscars.<\/p>\n<p>ALBANIAN FOOD<\/p>\n<p>Serb soldiers in Kosova<br \/>\nHad rich Albanian menu<\/p>\n<p>In the morning<br \/>\nMilk from torn mothers\u2019 breasts<br \/>\nAnd newborn babies boiled in the fires of the homes that were burning<br \/>\nServed with black eyes, blue eyes or brown eyes<br \/>\nAnd a bottle of boiling tears<\/p>\n<p>Some were content only with the roasted head<\/p>\n<p>At lunch<br \/>\nBroken hearts of all ages<br \/>\nCooked in the juice of bones<br \/>\nAnd back meat roasted in live coal<br \/>\nAccompanied with children\u2019s fried brains<br \/>\nAnd a salad of shouts sprinkled with vinegar of horror<br \/>\nAnd one and half liter of raped girls\u2019 blood<\/p>\n<p>Some were content only with the roasted head<\/p>\n<p>At dinner<br \/>\nBlack and white lungs<br \/>\nHere and there a kidney<br \/>\nChild meat mixed with the blood of mothers<br \/>\nSome old man\u2019s flesh roasted on a spit<br \/>\nSalted with the salt out of the tears<\/p>\n<p>Some were content only with the roasted head<\/p>\n<p>In the meantime<br \/>\nThey were munching left ears and right ears<br \/>\nFingers and toes<br \/>\nHere and there some bloody noses<br \/>\nAnd our dreams dried on the execution wall<\/p>\n<p>Some were content only with the roasted head<\/p>\n<p>They baked and cooked in the fires of the homes that were burning<br \/>\nThey were eating and drinking from the skulls of Albanians<br \/>\nAs if they were not men<br \/>\nWere they, God?<br \/>\nUntil the summer returned them back to their soil<br \/>\nWhen they fattened up from death<\/p>\n<p>Translated by Fadil Bajraj<\/p>\n<p>IN MY SONG<\/p>\n<p>To my brother Fadil<\/p>\n<p>If in my song<br \/>\nThe sun rises in the south and dies in the north<br \/>\nLeave it alone<\/p>\n<p>If the rivers flow without names of men<br \/>\nLeave them alone<br \/>\nThe oblivion has its own reason<\/p>\n<p>If the stone in his kingdom is quiet<br \/>\nLeave it alone<br \/>\nThe fire is being saved for the great day of returning<\/p>\n<p>If in my song you meet a man<br \/>\nOn a sunny day<br \/>\nAs he drinks water in the river<br \/>\nWith his knees on the stones<br \/>\nLeave him alone<\/p>\n<p>He was born free<\/p>\n<p>Translated by Fadil Bajraj<\/p>\n<p>THE ANGEL\u2019S DREAMS<br \/>\nThe moment he set foot on earth<br \/>\nFirst thing he did was walk into a cantina<br \/>\nHe drank two whiskies, then he died<br \/>\nAnd the angels have night terrors<\/p>\n<p>When he came down a second time<br \/>\nHe drank nine vodkas and didn\u2019t notice when<br \/>\nThe people cut off his wings<\/p>\n<p>Ever since, he is afraid of sleeping<br \/>\nScared to dream something human<\/p>\n<p>Translated by Alice Whitmore<\/p>\n<p>THE SHOPPING BAG<\/p>\n<p>I don\u2019t know about you, dear friend<br \/>\nbut life keeps biting me with its beastly teeth<br \/>\nand there\u2019s nothing left to do<br \/>\nbut bite back<\/p>\n<p>I flick away my cigarette and cross the street patiently<br \/>\nso that some car doesn&#8217;t tear off<br \/>\nmy brand new shoes<\/p>\n<p>I walk into the supermarket<br \/>\nlamb chops<br \/>\na selection of fish<br \/>\nchicken wings breasts thighs \u2026 whole chickens<br \/>\nbull testicles cow brains beef liver<br \/>\npig trotters rabbits quails<br \/>\nall heavy, all carefully packaged<br \/>\nwith the price in the corner<br \/>\nto see if we can afford it<\/p>\n<p>I carry a bag with tortillas<br \/>\ngreen chiles<br \/>\nsix Indio beers, nice and cold<br \/>\nthree packets of Delicados, no filter<br \/>\nand I return home<br \/>\nto eat<br \/>\ntortillas with chile<br \/>\nand a little piece of myself<\/p>\n<p>Translated by Alice Whitmore<\/p>\n<p>KING OF NOTHING<\/p>\n<p>I don\u2019t know if I\u2019m standing on my head<br \/>\nor if the world has toppled over<br \/>\n\u200bHere it seems reality will never stoop so low<br \/>\nas to deny our own imagination<br \/>\nmeanwhile each day we wait among loved ones<br \/>\n\u200bfor the cold kiss of the blade of a thief\u2019s knife<br \/>\n\u200ba bullet\u2019s flight from its black nest<br \/>\n\u200bstraight into kidnapper\u2019s chest<br \/>\nor the liquid wail of drug traffickers\u2019 ax<br \/>\nwho make illusory collages<br \/>\n\u200bout of flesh from our bodies<\/p>\n<p>So<br \/>\nwe wait<br \/>\nwith a smile on our faces<br \/>\nWe prove Aristotle\u2019s words<br \/>\nthat man is the only animal<br \/>\ncapable of such a thing<br \/>\nsmiling<\/p>\n<p>Wind blows from all directions<br \/>\n\u200bthe sky committed to make a mess<br \/>\nGoddammit<br \/>\n\u200bLife must be lived<br \/>\nBut<br \/>\nI don\u2019t give a fuck about anything<br \/>\nI\u2019m nearly dead but I\u2019m rich<br \/>\nI have seven Bozhur cigarette packs<br \/>\nand a collection of bottles<br \/>\nfilled with fresh Rahovec air<br \/>\nwhile the world exists solely for poetry<br \/>\nfor a glass of raki<br \/>\nand making love<br \/>\n\u200b<br \/>\nI say this from the land of the winged snake<br \/>\nit grew wings<br \/>\nbecause it swallowed a dead<br \/>\n\u200b\u200b\u200bseagull<br \/>\nI know this<br \/>\nbecause I am<br \/>\nthe son of the Knight of the black Eagle<br \/>\n\u200b\u200b\u200bblack as the final night<br \/>\nemperor of the red sky<br \/>\nFor my swift return to the empire of silence<br \/>\nI need nothing<br \/>\nbecause I\u2019m the king of nothing<br \/>\nI\u2019m the holy nothing<br \/>\nGod of nothing and more than that<br \/>\nI am nothing itself<br \/>\nI<br \/>\nwho have just found another house<br \/>\nand now live here<br \/>\nmy belly full my soul empty<br \/>\nand while time flies stealing days from the future<br \/>\nno one complains about this<\/p>\n<p>translated by Ani Gjika<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Xhevdet Bajraj, Kosovo\/M\u00e9xico. Member of the Board Xhevdet Bajraj is a poet, dramatist, translator, and professor. His works of poetry, which total nearly twenty volumes, have been translated into English, German, Spanish, Danish, Serbian, Slovenian, Hungarian, Turkish, and Polish. He has been the recipient of many awards and honors, among them, the prize for best [&hellip;]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":3499,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[161,162],"tags":[],"book_author":[],"book_publisher":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iwabogdani.org\/sq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3027"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iwabogdani.org\/sq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iwabogdani.org\/sq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iwabogdani.org\/sq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iwabogdani.org\/sq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3027"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.iwabogdani.org\/sq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3027\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3498,"href":"https:\/\/www.iwabogdani.org\/sq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3027\/revisions\/3498"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iwabogdani.org\/sq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3499"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iwabogdani.org\/sq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3027"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iwabogdani.org\/sq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3027"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iwabogdani.org\/sq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3027"},{"taxonomy":"book_author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iwabogdani.org\/sq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/book_author?post=3027"},{"taxonomy":"book_publisher","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iwabogdani.org\/sq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/book_publisher?post=3027"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}