A couple of weeks ago, I met Heike Kretschmer at a recent event marking the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. She told an amazing and tragic story about how the Berlin Wall destroyed her family. Heike’s story appears in today’s Swerve Magazine here.
Monthly Archives: November 2014
Gratitude all around
posted by Marcello Di Cintio
Sunday marked the final event of the Calgary Public Library’s ‘One Book One Calgary’ program. I joined a panel of fascinating folks at Fish Creek Library for a telling of personal stories of ‘walls’ in our lives. My thanks to Hadeel Qazzaz, Hector Frias, Cheryl Dueck, Cory Cardinal and Kris Demeanor for sharing their remarkable […]
November
12
Final ‘One Book One Calgary’ Events
posted by Marcello Di Cintio
There are only a few days left in the Calgary Public Library’s ‘One Book One Calgary’ program, and two final events I am happy to be part of. On Saturday afternoon, I will join the CPL’s current writer-in-residence, the ever-charming Rosemary Nixon, for an event called “From the Authors.” Rosemary and I will be ‘talking […]
November
11
Amedeo Sorrentino, soldier
posted by Marcello Di Cintio
My grandfather, Amedeo Sorrentino, is 91 years-old and a veteran of the Second World War. He did not, though, fight for Canada. He will not be counted among those rightfully honoured at today’s Remembrance Day ceremonies. Nonno did not “fight for our freedom,” as we are so fond of saying every November. Still, I want […]
November
09
“The walls will continue to rise, and we will continue to tear them down.”
posted by Marcello Di Cintio
In 1992, on the occasion of Montréal’s 350th birthday, the City of Berlin gave the city a rough sliver of concrete about three metres tall and a metre wide salvaged from the Wall’s great fall in 1990. Vivid graffiti covers what was the western side of the slab. An orange sunburst. Swirls of green and […]
November
07
Walls Within Walls: A visit to Calgary’s Remand Centre
posted by Marcello Di Cintio
Yesterday, as part of the library’s ‘One Book One Calgary’ programming, I visited the Calgary Remand Centre where a group of around twenty inmates had been assigned to read Walls for their book club. I didn’t know what to expect from the men and felt nervous. I wondered about what their level of engagement might […]
November
03
Barghouti’s ‘Ordinary’ Jerusalem
posted by Marcello Di Cintio
I just finished reading Palestinian author Mourid Barghouti’s excellent book I Saw Ramallah. The book was first published in Arabic in 1997 and the English translation I have dates back to 2001. Still, with the conflict going on in Jerusalem these days, I thought Bargouti’s description of the city bears sharing: All that […]
November
03
The Berlin Wall Disease
posted by Marcello Di Cintio
As the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall approaches, I am reminded of Mauerkrankheit, or the ‘Wall Disease.’ In 1973, East German psychiatrist Dietfried Müller-Hegemann observed that his patients who lived close to the Berlin Wall showed higher rates of psychosis, schizophrenia, and phobias. Those East Germans who lived in the shadow […]
Elsewhere 