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We owe Europe to a heavenly being from the time of the Gods when they took on a corporal form to seduce and make love to earthly maidens. The daughter of a king was abducted, one whose beauty enticed both men and Gods. There must be something divine in this fiendish love, for from the homelands of Europe we were given the gift of writing. Perhaps contraband – certainly an antidote for our forgetfulness.
Since then we have written so much in order to hold onto our stories, which otherwise would have been as fleetingly faithful to us as the bull Zeus once was. And self-opinionated like every fledgling writer who believes that the preservation of their words on paper entails their own immortality. For the divine is as stubborn as a bull and eternally its own. Everyone wants Europe only as their own prime cut of beef.
O God! O Zeus! O you suffering literati of the national wilfulness! We have written so many words against one another that the ink circulates through our bodies like a mischievous genie. Europe is no victim, no battlefield, not a piece of property. She is the Goddess of languages. She understands each and every one of us who understands her.
Her temples are numerous, if somewhat modest. They resemble coffee houses more than houses of God. The truth here is called nuance and prayer talent. The Last Judgement – rumours, good news as the risk of a cognisant life.
Café Europe opens on 9 May.
Jiří Gruša, President of International P.E.N.
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