Blooming through the Ashes: An International Anthology on Violence and the Human Spirit Book

Prologue: Seamus Heaney, Poetry's Power against Intolerance- Northern Ireland     ix
Acknowledgments     xiii
Introduction     xv
Terror and Trauma
Bearing Witness     3
"The Dance"-Turkish Armenia   Siamento     5
Excerpt from Cambodian Witness-Cambodia   Someth May     8
Excerpt from Night-United States   Elie Wiesel     10
Excerpt from All Quiet on the Western Front-Germany   Erich Maria Remarque     15
Excerpt from Jarhead-United States   Anthony Swofford     18
"Report from the Besieged City"-Poland   Zbigniew Herbert     20
"Witnessing"-United States   Debra Fontaine     22
Isolated and Apart     24
Excerpt from Dispatches-United States   Michael Herr     25
Excerpt from The Gulag Archipelago-Russia   Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn     28
Excerpt from "In the Shadow of Freedom"-India   Begum Anis Kidwai     33
Excerpt from "Waking Up"-United States   Paul W. Morris     39
Coping Mechanisms     45
"Graffiti"-Argentina   Julio Cortazar     46
Excerpt from The Island-South Africa   Athol Fugard     51
Excerpt from The Stone Virgins-Zimbabwe   Yvonne Vera     56
Excerpt from The Anecdotes of Section Chief Maimaiti-China   Wang Meng     59
Excerpt from Ways of Dying-South Africa   Zakes Mda     62
Excerpt from Decision-United States   Kay Boyle     66
Excerpt from Fatelessness-Hungary   Imre Kertesz     72
Writing the Unspeakable and the Pressure of Emptiness     84
"We All Saw It, or the View from Home"-United States   A. M. Homes     85
"A View of Mountains"-United States   Jonathan Schell     88
"Personae Separatae"-Italy   Eugenio Montale     91
"The Dead of September 11"-United States   Toni Morrison     92
"What's Not in the Heart"-Israel   Abba Kovner     94
"O"-Iraq   Dunya Mikhail     96
Commanding Oblivion
Surviving Survival     101
Excerpt from Double Vision: Reflections on My Heritage, Life, and Profession-United States   Ben Bagdikian     102
Excerpt from We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed with Our Families: Stories from Rwanda-United States   Philip Gourevitch     108
Excerpt from Hiroshima Notes-Japan   Kenzaburo Oe     117
Excerpt from Days and Memory-France   Charlotte Delbo     123
"Earlier Winter"-Canada   Alexander Molot     126
Landscape and Memory     128
"Nineteen Thirty Seven"-Haiti   Edwidge Danticat     129
Excerpt from Blame Me on History-South Africa   Bloke Modisane     131
"Recalling War"-England   Robert Graves     140
Excerpt from Toba Tek Singh-Pakistan   Saadat Hasan Manto     142
"A Jar of Rain"-United States   John Hoppenthaler     149
Fading Memory and the Role of Art     151
"Graphite"-Russia   Varlam Shalamov     152
"New York, 12 September 2001"-South Africa   Breyten Breytenbach     157
Excerpt from "The Walls Do Not Fall"-United States and United Kingdom   H. D.     159
"Shadow"-France   Guillaume Apollinaire     164
Beating Back the Ghosts of the Past     166
Excerpt from Rise the Euphrates-United States   Carol Edgarian     168
Excerpt from The Shawl-United States   Cynthia Ozick     176
"Hut on a Mountain"-China   Can Xue     179
Excerpt from Pnin-Russia    Vladimir Nabokov     184
Excerpt from Beloved-United States   Toni Morrison     189
Remembrance
Setting the Record Straight     199
Excerpt from The Other Side of Silence-India   Urvashi Butalia     200
Excerpt from "This Past Must Address Its Present"-Nigeria   Wole Soyinka     202
Excerpt from "The Chinese Amnesia"-China   Fang Li-Zhi     208
"Speaking of Courage"-United States   Tim O'Brien     211
"Under Foreign Rain (Footnotes to Defeat): XXV"-Argentina   Juan Gelman     227
Excerpt from "Who Killed India"-India   Khwaja Ahmad Abbas     228
"Dedication"-Lithuania, United States, and Poland   Czeslaw Milosz     230
Rose-Colored Memory     232
"Memories of a Battle"-Italy   Italo Calvino     233
Excerpt from Ceremony-United States   Leslie Marmon Silko     240
Excerpt from The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born-Ghana   Ayi Kwei Armah     246
"The Desert"-Egypt   Edmond Jabes     251
"Words Fail, Memory Blurs, Life Wins"-United States   Joyce Carol Oates     253
Objects of Memory     256
"Pigtail"-Poland   Tadeusz Rozewicz     257
"Underneath Oblivion"-Greece   Yannis Ritsos     258
"Inventory"-Germany   Gunter Eich     259
Excerpt from "Requiem"-Russia   Anna Akhmatova     261
"Letter to Ibrahim"-Libya   Khaled Mattawa     263
Excerpt from Anil's Ghost-Sri Lanka   Michael Ondaatje     265
Building Bridges     268
"When the Towers Fell"-United States   Galway Kinnell     269
"On Prayer"-Poland   Czeslaw Milosz     274
"Tomorrow the Past Comes"-Romania   Ion Caraion     275
"Constellation of Dead Brothers"-Belgium   Victor Serge     276
"Feast in Candlelight"-Iraq   Fadhil Al-Azzawi     278
"A Mirror for the Twentieth Century"-Syria   Adonis     279
"The Sadder Century"-Chile   Pablo Neruda     280
Permissions     283