Wild Bird by Art O’Donnell
Wild Bird is a collection from Art O’Donnell, an Irishman who once called Madrid home.
Art has written a wonderful book about birds, taking in the travails of moving country, being sick in a foreign land, the weight of the past, what it means to be a teacher and the karma that can befall a person who takes shortcuts on El Camino.
Praised for its humour and insight, we are proud that this is one of our first publications at Ybernia. Ybernia is our new initiative – a bilingual publishing company.
To celebrate, we would like present an extract from Wild Bird.
Newspaper – A Short Story
A few generations ago, the old man had been young. He remembered, while holding a book in his hand in the Retiro, listening to the crackle of the radio – it cracked with reports of protests and beatings. He turned it on as soon as he got home, even before putting on his soft but worn slippers. Mahogany bookcases and marble adornments created the perfect acoustics, broadcasting clearly the peaceful demonstrators being dispersed by plastic, in its baton and bullet form. For those on the street, sirens screamed. For him, the musical jingle for the weather, for sport.
He accepted dictatorships and democracy with sanguine indifference. His boss, the wife, two children, he had to answer to them in daily plebiscites and polls. The man bought plastic toys and gave wine to superiors in plastic bags, and it was just about enough.
Times had changed. Protesters were now prime ministers. He remembered not doing anything. The only thing that stood out in the carousel of time was that he walked every year through the Book Fair. Generously, he supported emerging writers, listened to many of the speeches, and bought books on poetry, art, psychology and all kinds of theory.
Don’t forget…
There are two other stories in this collection, as well as 18 stellar poems.
