Félix Calvino

Unfinished Thoughts

2011-12-29T14:14:00.006+10:00

December 29, 2011

‎'Unfinished Thoughts' has been selected to screen at the 2012 Melbourne Queer Film Festival! Congratulations to all involved.

Bluebird Productions

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Unfinished-Thoughts/178963938822009

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Unfinished-Thoughts/178963938822009?sk=info

Review - Goodreads

2011-12-21T05:53:00.004+10:00

A Hatful of Cherries

(Read from December 08 to 19, 2011)

I have just finished ‘A Hatful of Cherries’ and loved it. Each story drew me in and I felt a connection to the characters. I felt so sad for Basilio and his wife. Really loved the ‘Ghosts on The Beach’ too. ‘Silvia’ was such a measured story, belying the strangeness of the two men sharing a mistress. Calvino's endings are really great, because he makes them astonishing, even when they are about ordinary happenings. The story about quitting smoking was painful to read, but gripping. I felt his frustration...and I have never smoked! The ‘Detour’ story has a film in it I am sure!

I also liked the way Calvino moved from stories set in Spain, to those set in Australia. It provided a rhythm that was punctuated every now and then...like jazz! I could not read more than two stories at one time, because I liked how they stayed with me for awhile.

Kathryn Briblecombe-Fox

http://www.kathrynbrimblecombe-fox.com

http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/242693104

Emsah News / Facebook

2011-09-18T12:14:00.009+10:00

September 16, 2011

Congratulations to Félix Calvino on the recent launch of the third edition of A Hatful of Cherries.

This wonderful collection of short stories chronicles life growing up in the villages of northern Spain, and later adjusting to a new life in Australia.

The latest edition of A Hatful of Cherries was launched at the Melbourne Writers Festival as part of the launch of the 2011 Press On series published by Arcadia, an imprint of Australian Scholarly Publishing.

Félix joined a panel of six writers from the Press On series who presented their work, reading key passages to a rapt audience.

“I was honoured for people to come and listen to stories from another world,” said Félix.

Félix is currently completing an MPhil in Creative Writing with the School of EMSAH, researching time and space in two 20th Century novellas: Ernest Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea, and Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich. He is also hard at work on a short novel that explores the lives of migrant men.

“The migrant experience is well documented in Australia, but the plight of single men has been largely ignored,” said Félix.

“Though a majority attain financial security, these men often fail to ‘adjust’ since they have been deprived of their language, culture, and history; material riches and relative comfort do not free them from a life of social and spiritual misery.”

Félix hopes to publish his novel early next year.

View more on Félix Calvino’s website

http://ahatfulofcherries.blogspot.com/.

http://www.facebook.com/uqemsahnews

www.emsahnews.wordpress.com.

Unfinished Thoughts - Facebook

2011-06-03T17:11:00.005+10:00

June 3, 2011

Basic Information

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Unfinished-Thoughts/178963938822009?v=info

Review - Goodreads

2011-06-03T16:21:00.004+10:00

June 3, 2011

A Hatful of Cherries

I like the title I think it fit very well with the collection. As a collection I thought it was cohesive and well thought through. The stories were nice, definitely some were very savorable. Perhaps each story needs to be rated individually though as a few of them I did not particularly enjoy. I do think they portrayed that essence of memory. That feeling of remembering an event in miniature. Perhaps my brain was a little to "attack kamikaze style" for this set though. If I were to re read them I would have preferred a lazy day at the beach or in the tub. I was reading them so crazily that I would get to the end of some of them (two pages) and go what? Wait what happened? Then I would have to re read it, and would almost harbour some kind of resentment to the piece or author for experience and anxiety of my own rushed ways. Unfair I know, and I took that into account when I rated it.

Cassandra Silva

http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/153563810

Unfinished Thoughts

2011-05-18T15:30:00.005+10:00

May 19, 2011

2011 South Australian Screen Awards

One of the highlights of the evening was the awarding of BEST PERFORMANCE to Adelaide actress Chantal Contouri for her role in the delicately sublime film, Unfinished Thoughts, based on the Spanish short story by Felix Calvino. …

http://www.mrc.org.au/follow-it/news/224

Entrevista / Interview - El Correo Gallego

2011-05-15T13:10:00.027+10:00

May 15, 2011

Félix Calviño: “La memoria de Galicia siempre será mi refugio”

Texto José Miguel Giráldez -

El escritor Félix Calviño, nacido en Lalín (Alemparte), lleva muchos años viviendo en Australia, absolutamente integrado en aquella sociedad y, en los últimos años, alcanzando un notable éxito literario. Aunque es un autor tardío, la publicación en 2008 de A Hatful of Cherries (Un sombrero lleno de cerezas) supuso para él un importante espaldarazo dentro del mundo anglosajón. Sin embargo, muchas de sus historias, llenas de memoria y de sensibilidad, discurren fundamentalmente en escenarios gallegos. Alertados por el profesor Roy Boland (Universidad de Sidney), fuimos los primeros en entrevistar a Félix Calviño en Galicia (la entrevista se publicó el 18 de mayo de 2008, en este mismo suplemento, y puede encontrarse en el archivo digital de este diario). Desde entonces, su energía literaria no ha dejado de crecer. Su nuevo libro, una novela sobre su experiencia migratoria, que se llamará definitivamente Alfonso, está en camino, y hace apenas unas semanas se publicaba un capítulo completo en la prestigiosa revista australiana Quadrant, una publicación líder en el mundo de las ideas y la literatura, que se edita desde 1956. En estos días, uno de los relatos de Calviño, Unfinished Thoughts, ha sido llevado al cine (en forma de corto) y está nominado a ocho premios en los South Australia Screen Awards. Félix Calviño habló de nuevo para nosotros en vísperas de que su nuevo libro vea la luz.

"Han pasado un par de años", le digo, "y está claro que has tenido éxito en Australia, a muchos kilómetros de casa. Todo un logro, si consideramos que tú empezaste como un alumno de doctorado en Brisbane, que escribes teniendo a Galicia muy presente y que eres un autor gallego escribiendo en inglés en un país muy alejado de tu tierra natal. ¿Cómo definirías el éxito de A Hatful of Cherries? me imagino que esta espléndida colección de relatos te ha ayudado a entrar definitivamente en el territorio de la literatura en lengua inglesa". "La meta de mi primer libro fue la de buscar mi propia voz", me dice Calviño. "Este es quizá el más tortuoso de los caminos que emprende un escritor y, por supuesto, el más gratificante cuando se logra, especialmente cuando uno trabaja con un idioma que no es el materno. Para mí este fue el desafío artístico, lo de escribir en inglés sin dejar de ser yo mismo. Y bueno, sí creo haberlo logrado, pues el recibimiento del público literario angloparlante en Australia y en los EEUU ha sido muy alentador. En mayo saldrá la tercera edición… Desde luego, no esperaba tanto", subraya, sin poder disimular su entusiasmo.

Le pregunto entonces por lo que ha hecho en estos dos años. Le digo si ha seguido escribiendo febrilmente, si, tras el inicio, ya no va a poder parar. Y me gustaría saber algo de esta nueva novela, que, por lo que parece tiene mucho que ver con su propia experiencia, con su viaje y su asentamiento en las antípodas. "Publiqué diez relatos, cinco de ellos en los Estados Unidos", dice, lacónicamente. "En cuanto a la novela en que estoy trabajando, porque aún estoy trabajando en ella, te diría que, sobre todo, es el elemento creativo principal del programa del Máster en escritura creativa que llevo a cabo en la Universidad de Queensland’’.

No puedo dejar de preguntarle por la importancia de Galicia y su paisaje en su obra, por la memoria de tu tierra natal: "¿sigue estando tan presente en todo lo que escribes?" "Claro", dice con énfasis. "Galicia figura de manera prominente en mi narración. En las memorias que yo guardo de Galicia está el refugio ideal donde mi mente regresa para rejuvenecerse. Es para mí un sitio donde poder estar y donde poder refrescarme, y así percibir el mundo desde una perspectiva más personal y más íntima". En pocos años, Félix Calviño ha logrado hacerse un cierto nombre en los círculos literarios, siempre con la etiqueta de escritor profundo. Le pregunto por eso. Por su posición literaria en Australia y en el mercado anglosajón. "¿Es difícil abrirse camino? ¿Cómo han aceptado a un escritor español escribiendo en inglés?", le digo.

"El mercado anglosajón es muy amplio e inmensamente competitivo, pero yo creo que tengo una base, pequeña pero sí una base, como lo demuestran las ventas de mi primer libro", explica. "Y, sobre lo segundo, creo que no ha estado mal. En realidad, jamás he sido juzgado por mi nacionalidad. Más bien por la calidad de la escritura y por el uso y originalidad del contenido". Lo cierto es que desde A Hatful of Cherries hasta esta nueva novela, la obra de Félix Calviño (Calvino, como le dicen allí), ha aparecido comentada, reseñada, en numerosas ocasiones. Han visto la luz elogiosas reseñas, como la publicada en Antipodes: A Global Journal of Australian/New Zealand Literature (Brooklyn, New York). Ha sido entrevistado en el Baltimore Literature Examiner, (Maryland), y ha merecido la atención de The Barcelona Review.com, de críticos literarios como Grady Harp, James N Powell (Estados Unidos) o Cheryl Hayden, Scope y Clare Archer-Lean (Australia) entre otros.

"¿Es posible ganarse la vida como escritor en Australia? ¿Aspiras a eso, Félix?", le digo. Sonríe y deja una respuesta tan breve como contundente: "Sí, se puede. Pero yo no estoy en esa liga". En la distancia, Calviño sigue la literatura gallega y española, pero, evidentemente, muchas de sus lecturas provienen del universo anglosajón. Puede que también las influencias. Porque su inmersión cultural y lingüística es notable. "Creo que estoy muy lejos, en Australia, para poder hacer una valoración informada", señala. "Lo que sí puedo decir en la distancia es que el ambiente literario allá me parece muy activo y vibrante, y que las nuevas generaciones (pienso en Manuel Rivas) parecen continuar la rica tradición narrativa marcada por Torrente, Cela o Conde. Eso es lo que percibo", concluye. Félix Calviño continúa su gran aventura literaria. Galicia está presente en Australia (y en inglés), en gran medida, gracias a su literatura. No piensa en volver, al menos ahora, pero sí le gustaría contar aquí en Galicia cómo llegó a convertirse en escritor en inglés, lejos de casa. "Sería muy gratificante presentar mi trabajo", dice con su habitual entusiasmo. Su próxima novela, llegará pronto. Su vida y su experiencia como inmigrante estarán de nuevo dentro de ella.

la nueva novela. Cap.1

Nancy llegó a la casa de Alfonso a las ocho de la mañana del domingo con una caja de cartón que contenía un olla de color rojo. "La cena", dijo ella, "lista para el fuego cuando regresemos". Alfonso quería preguntarle qué había en la olla. También quería decirle que estaba muy atractiva en sus jeans y su blusa blanca. En cambio, le ofreció una taza de café. El Morris Minor rojo de Nancy estaba estacionado enfrente de la casa. Giró la llave de contacto. "Estamos en camino", dijo. La ciudad tenía el fresco olor a limpio de la mañana. Las tiendas y negocios de automóviles a lo largo de la calle Parramatta aún no estaban abiertos. La radio pronosticaba tormentas por la tarde, pero Alfonso observó un cielo sin nubes. "Típico septiembre", dijo Nancy. "Me gustaría saber más acerca de ti", agregó un poco más tarde. "¿Qué te gustaría saber?" Él se fijó en su perfil y en sus largos dedos curvados colocados suavemente alrededor del volante. Entonces miró por la ventana y vio "Bienvenido a Ashfield", escrito en flores al lado de la carretera. "Todo, pero puedes empezar por decirme cuánto llevas en Australia." "Nueve años". "¿Te gusta? " "Sí".

http://www.elcorreogallego.es/hemeroteca-web/ecg/felix-calvino-memoria-galicia-siempre-sera-refugio/idEdicion-2011-05-15/idNoticia-668655/

http://www.elcorreogallego.es/indexSuplementos.php?idEdicion=1981&idMenu=15&idNoticia=668655

Unfinished Thoughts

2011-04-14T18:37:00.009+10:00

April 14, 2011

Unfinished Thoughts, short story adapted to a short film (A Hatful of Cherries), has been nominated for 8 South Australian Screen Awards in the following categories:

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY

BEST PRODUCTION DESIGN

BEST EDITING

BEST SCREENPLAY

BEST PERFORMANCE

BEST DIRECTING

BEST DRAMA

BEST FILM

http://mrcproductions.wordpress.com/2011/04/11/2011-south-australian-screen-awards-2011-nominations-announced/

http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=190720724304618&comments

Media Resource Centre :: Industry News

Sheep in the Valiant

2011-04-01T13:31:00.009+10:00

April 1, 2011

An excerpt from a novel-in-progress, with the working title of Alfonso, set in Sydney between 1962 and 1972. The protagonist is a man from the northwest of Spain who migrates to Australia to escape poverty. When he arrives in Australia, he confronts language problems, homesickness, and isolation. He works as a carpenter and eventually buys a house in Surry Hills, unaware of the cost and commitment associated with old houses and feuding neighbours. When the house renovation is finished, he meets a woman and they fall in love, but the woman leaves for England. The story then traces his search for love; in the process, he finds a place to belong in his new country. More than a love story, this is a novel about the migrant experience, in which all that is known is forfeited in the search for material security.

Stories

http://www.quadrant.org.au/magazine/current

Review - James N Powell

2011-03-06T12:45:00.008+10:00

March 6, 2011

A Hatful of Cherries

duende, or what I call aesthetic darkness

In the native tongue of Tahiti, Ponui means "the immense night." Although Po is darkness and night, this darkness is not evil, but good and nurturing, as are the earth and the womb. Po is the creative world of night, the magical, immense and dark womb from whence our dreaming, our lovemaking, and our visions of spirits blossom forth.

Haunting the soul of much Spanish literature dwells Po by another name: duende, 'aesthetic darkness.' Lorca wrote that "duende, then, is a power, not a work. It is a struggle, not a thought. I have heard an old maestro of the guitar say, 'The duende is not in the throat; the duende climbs up inside you, from the soles of the feet.' Meaning this: it is not a question of ability, but of true, living style, of blood, of the most ancient culture, of spontaneous creation." He suggests, "everything that has black sounds in it, has duende, i.e., emotional 'darkness.'

Immense, sense-consuming darkness, proclaims Indian's great scripture of Tantra yoga, The Vijnana Bhairava Sutras simply does not support the quotidian, day-to-day thoughts that plague the mind of an aspiring yogi. So that on a moonless monsoon night, when one cannot see the even nose of one's lover, the mind may find itself transcending into the great mystery beyond thought.

And this is what is miraculous about work of Felix Calvino, a Spanish-Australian writer of great depth. His tenderly rendered, haunting, compassionate tales, like those of the best Spanish writers, are often tinted with the indwelling, dark allure of duende. Yet, duende is felt in Felix's prose through his characters' day-to-day struggles with such fundamental givens as identity. And one senses in one's gut that with Felix it is not a question of ability, but of true living style, of blood, of the most ancient culture, of the writer's dark nostalgia for the millenia-old mysterious ways of Spanish village life.

I invite you to acquaint yourself with this gifted writer. You will discover a deeply authentic voice. It may continue to haunt you long after you have read the last word.

www.goodreads.com/author/show/6758.James_N_Powell

2010 EMSAH REVIEW

2010-12-30T06:50:00.007+10:00

December 30, 2010

Felix Calvino, a current MPhil student, was the recipient of the inaugural Cecilie Anne Sloane Postgraduate English Creative Writing Research Scholarship …

Writing Area Report

http://www.uq.edu.au/emsah/eoy2010/writing.html/#initiative

Media Resources Centre: Industry News

2010-10-17T09:07:00.008+10:00

October 17, 2010

Congratulations to recipients of MRC Next Step

Producer Alexandra Blue and Writer/Director Dimitrios Pouliotis were the successful team selected for $25,000 investment from the MRC for their 15 minute film Unfinished Thoughts, based on a short story by Felix Calvino.

Funding was made up of $15,000 in cash from MRC and $5,000 equipment hire from Picture Hire and MRC, as well as $5,000 in post production equipment and/or facilities from Oasis Post.

Production is scheduled to commence in November 2010.

We wish them all the best for an enjoyable shoot.

http://www.mrc.org.au/follow-it/news/187

Media Resource Centre :: Industry News

PINSTRIPE FEDORA

2010-09-24T02:55:00.006+10:00

September 24, 2010

Two stories

The Gypsies
The Hen

http://www.pinstripefedora.com/issue8.html

THE MIX TAPE FAST FORWARD

2010-07-30T06:48:00.004+10:00

July 29, 2010

An Amazing Feat: Startling Stories in Tiny Spaces,

By	Grady Harp (Los Angeles, CA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Mix Tape (Perfect Paperback)

THE MIX TAPE is from the series FLASH FORWARD: A Collection of Flash Fiction - 2010 and is a winner from the cover design, to the concept of dividing the book in two parts - one opens from the front, the other flips the book and turns is upside down for part 2. Inside this little treasure trove are what seem like hundreds of very brief 'novels' compressed into 1 to 4 pages. Within this context the many authors served up here find the ability to create an entire story that because of the abbreviated format carries such a wallop that it takes a moment to breathe before the next one.

The microstories range from high comedy to sensitive melodrama, to bizarre animals, funerals, Holocaust, teen pregnancies, religion - almost every imaginable topic is surveyed with astonishingly fine writing. Some of the stand out works include a brief look at an encounter with possible love angles that ends unexpectedly by Felix Calvino (‘In the Park’), several stories from Nancy Stohlman ('Clowning for Jesus' is bound to become a classic) whose flirtations with being naughty ('Donny and Marie Osmond Barbie') vie with those of Kona Morris ('Confession #3', 'Going Back') or stories by Sophie Rosenblum ('A Terrier's Limits' et al). To have the luxury to savor such creativity within the covers of one book is a feast. Let's hope these 'Fast Forwards' continue! Editors K. Scott Forman, Kona Morris, and Nancy Stohlman have done a superb job in arresting the talents of many terrific writers. Grady Harp, July 10

Antipodes (Brooklyn, New York)

2010-07-18T09:14:00.013+10:00

July 17, 2010

Review

Multicultural, pastoral tales hint at the unknown

Félix Calviño. A Hatful of Cherries

Steve Goerger

Salem, OR

Echoing the biography of its author, Félix Calviño’s A Hatful of Cherries is perhaps most notable for its intriguing juxtaposition of Spanish and Australian cultures. Of the sixteen short stories collected here, ten are set in Spain, where Calvino was raised and from which he fled military service during the deadly Spanish Civil War; six take place in Australia, where Calviño has lived since the 1960s. The majority of the Spanish stories chronicle the hardships and small joys of village life, while the Australian stories investigate the lives of lonely, immigrant men navigating unfamiliar terrain. While these lines of demarcation lead to obvious differences in content, the stories also have a vibrant through line constructed of the humanity and wisdom of the characters, and of Calviño himself.

The well-drawn characters and their relationships are the clear highlight of the collection. The Spanish stories are rich with familial love overcoming the bitter experience of life, such as in “The Swallows,” when a young boy is taught of the mystery and beauty of nature by his wise and kind-hearted grandfather.

Stories such as “An Old Sheep” and “Basilio” extend this love into the larger community, gracefully illustrating the mutual generosity necessary to rural survival, while “A Hatful of Cherries” and “Silvia” offer elegant reflections on the beauty and turmoil of romance. The Australian stories offer vivid portrayals of the immigrant experience and of mateship, as in the excellent “A New Place,” where a group of immigrant friends go out to a nightclub in search of female companionship, and the narrator catches a brief glimpse of true love, only to watch it vanish into the crowd.

Calviño brings a well-developed craft to the portrayal of these characters, their situations and inner lives. His style is gentle, full of respect for life’s mysteries, with phrase-making abilities that reveal the enigmas of existence concisely and profoundly. In “An Old Sheep,” four sentences describing a shepherd’s home summarize his life’s luck and misery completely: “The room was cold in winter and hot in summer. It was always dark. Tired twinkles of light came through the fissures in the roof tiles. A small window looked out into the trees”(33). In “A New Place,” the simple words “I can cook” (43) convey a lifetime of desire and uncertainty. “The stars are her eyes,” says Grandpa at the end of “The Swallows” (182), intimating to the young narrator all the magic of living things. Moments such as these abound throughout the collection, and elevate moments of dull living into transcendence.

At times, however, these moments can feel too few and far between in Calviño’s work. These are stories of reflection; narration is normally at a great remove from events, and exposition is given weight at the expense of scene. “Silvia” concerns a pregnancy creating love triangle between two male friends and the title character, with endless opportunities for languorous scenes which illustrate the emotional joys and conflicts of the situation. One paragraph describes Silvia as “seated in an easy chair in the living room against beautiful tapestries, the colours of which brought deep repose to the mind,” and notes that this is an occasion Alfredo “reminisced many years later” (158). While Alfredo’s memory does paint a lovely image, it also suggests the opportunity for a more fully realized scene, one which might bring readers into that living room, to experience its beauty without the mediation of Alfredo’s mind. Similarly, the story “Basilio”—one of the strongest pieces in the collection—brings home the deadly aftermath of the Spanish Civil War, but it does very little to recreate the atrocities of the war itself. Basilio reminisces about the number of dead and summarizes some of the killings, but never does he experience a flash back or some other trick of narration that might intensify the story’s sorrowful themes. “Ghosts on the Beach” draws in the reader because of its anomalous setting—the afterlife—but it fails to develop its most interesting theme that of romantic love between ghosts. The resolutions of many of the stories feel incomplete or unsatisfactory, unwilling to mine the characters’ lives for their most resonant and lasting legacies.

The finest of the stories are those which deliver a heightened sense of irony, proposing some unexpected twist in the beauty of life in villages, in new homelands, and elsewhere. “Winners and Losers,” the story of a lost wallet, is among the best in this regard. After the narrator loses his wallet, his mates at a local pub place bets on how much

of its monetary contents will return. Meanwhile, the narrator, interested in the stories of poor men, is taken on a tour of food missions in the area by his friend Henry. The story becomes an examination of the nature of luck and circumstance in the lives of men, buoyed by the narrator’s generous nature toward others. Just as he seems to have reconciled bad luck as a simple fact of an otherwise good life, his wallet turns up with a surprise of its own. “Basilio,” “Restless Hands,” and “Silvia” are other stories which resolve in a manner addressing life’s complexities, at home and abroad. Here Calviño’s well-crafted folk tales brush against the unexpected and the unusual, giving birth to masterful, illuminating art.

www.australianliterature.org/Antipodes_Recent_Issues.htm

Goerger, Steve. Multicultural, pastoral tales hint at the unknown [Book review of Calvino, Felix. A Hatful of Cherries (2007).] [online]. Antipodes (Brooklyn, New York), v.23, no.2, Dec 2009: 218-219.

Multicultural, pastoral tales hint at the unknown [Book review of Calvino, Felix. A Hatful of Cherries (2007).]

Full Text PDF (50kb)

A Hatful of Cherries

2010-06-24T05:11:00.007+10:00

June 24, 2010

Dear Friends,

A Hatful of Cherries has been reprinted!
My sincere thanks for your support,

Félix

http://www.scholarly.info/allbooks/.

New York

2010-05-29T09:42:00.021+10:00

June 4, 2010

(Note New Venue)

Saturday, June 19th, 8:00-11:00 P.M.

A Reading and Release Party to Celebrate Fast Forward (Volume 3): The Mix Tape..

The Path Cafe
131 Christopher Street
New York, NY 10014
(212) 243-1311

www.pathcafe.com/

____________________

New York

Saturday, June 19th, 2-5 pm

A Reading and Release Party to Celebrate Fast Forward (Volume 3): The Mix Tape.
Kona Morris, Nancy Stohlman, Katharyn Grant, Christopher Bowen, Tom Clayton, Meg Tuite, Jon Olsen, Ashley Cowger, April Johnston, Christy Strick, T. L. Barrett , Jarod Rosello, Erik Morsink, Barbara Henning, Patricia Eakins, and Félix Calvino. Musical Guest Nick Busheff. An event in the Uptown Arts Stroll sponsored by the Northern Manhattan Arts Alliance.

New York Public Library, Fort Washington Branch
535 West 179th Street
New York, NY 10033
http://www.facebook.com/Fort Washington Library
Tel: 212-927-3533

Your Letter

2010-05-05T17:41:00.010+10:00

May 5, 2010

(Original Format)

Your Letter

comes at Christmas

and joins the ones

already in the garage

in a shoe box,

fading like

the dreams of children.

Your words

tell of a bountiful corn crop

and summer dances,

silent birds,

snow-covered fields.

I see your handwriting,

hear you laugh

splashing in the stream,

running on yellow leaves

through the naked woods.

Now I know why you cried

in your sleep.

Social alternatives

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_7735/is_200910/ai_n53080025/

They Are Only Dreams

2010-03-17T06:18:00.008+10:00

March 15, 2010

Literary Magazine Reviews :: NewPages :: Current Lit Mag Reviews

The Barcelona Review

Issue 69

December 2009

Reviewed by Henry F. Tonn

I read a selection of stories from three different online publications and was bored with the same old same old (I find it hard to believe that editors think anyone is going to read this banal stuff), and then I stumbled on to The Barcelona Review. Thanks goodness! The editors really live in Barcelona and say, “We like good, powerful, potent stuff that immediately commands attention, shows stylistic and imaginative distinction, and is literarily sound.” Well, who doesn’t? But these people really publish it.

Right out of the gate is an excerpt from a novel-in-progress set in North Korea by Adam Johnson. It is an account of a man named Jun Do who is accompanying two medics to a prison camp where they will remove the blood of injured prisoners – to be used elsewhere – rather than treating them, thereby accelerating their deaths. A blood-chilling winner. Next is a crazy but highly imaginative story by Daniel Eli Dronsfield entitled “The Alligator,” about a bored school teacher who suddenly becomes macho by capturing a three-foot alligator on the school grounds and saving it from destruction at the hands of the local authorities. A humorous winner. And then there is “Dixie Land” by B.J. Hollars, a poignant and touching story about a quirky father obsessed with the civil war and the disastrous result his quirks ultimately have on himself and his young son. Meanwhile, his wife is trying to invent a time machine. A well-written, creative, and entertaining winner.

In the flash fiction category is “They Are Only Dreams” by Felix Calvino, a quiet, sedate story that eventually turns rather haunting concerning a young child who has precognition. In the book review section, I was quite fascinated by Diana Grove’s Dot.Conned. Apparently the author decided to take on a number of the international con artists who send out emails in which they ask the potential sucker to be a middle man (middle person?) for huge money transactions, the goal being to bilk the gullible patsy out of their money. The author makes up names, sends creative pictures, has a grand time jerking their chains – all with humor.

This is one of the few journals that delivers what it promises. Just click below and give yourself a treat. Fresh from Barcelona and free. The marvel of modern technology.
[www.barcelonareview.com/]

www.newpages.com/magazinestand/litmags

they are only dreams

2010-02-24T14:50:00.002+10:00

nose in the books

January 17, 2010

They Are Only Dreams by Felix Calvino

This story in The Barcelona Review is a really quick read- and will give you the chills. Made me wish I had more faith…

they are only dreams

2009-12-26T17:57:00.016+10:00

December 23, 2009

Félix Calvino 2009. This electronic version of "They Are Only Dreams" ... Félix Calvino is the author of the short story collection A Hatful of Cherries. ...
www.barcelonareview.com/69/e_fc.html

http://www.barcelonareview.com/69/e_fc.html.

The Barcelona Review. International Review of Contemporary Fiction ...

Amazon.com: Fast Forward, Volume 2 (9780981785219): K. Scott ...

2009-12-16T15:55:00.012+10:00

Interview - Anna Horner

2009-08-02T09:18:00.002+10:00

July 31, 2009

Baltimore Literature Examiner

Félix Calvino, author of the short story collection A Hatful of Cherries, was born in Galicia, Spain, and lives in Australia, where he is undertaking a Master of Philosophy in Creative Writing at the University of Queensland. In A Hatful of Cherries, Calvino presents 16 short pieces and shows that stories do not have to be long to have sufficiently developed characters. The stories are beautifully written, with Calvino painting the scene so that you can picture it vividly in your mind. The prose is sparse, and each story is handled in a gentle tone despite some dark and melancholy themes.

Stories of note include "Basilio," a sad story of a man who picks up goods and sells them at market, traveling the dangerous post-Spanish Civil War roads while his wife worries about him at home, and "Sylvia," which follows two married men, best friends who share a lover. "Detour" focuses on a young man late to his engagement party when he detours to a more scenic route and his car breaks down in the rain. Calvino provides a shocking ending in just a few simple sentences. He also does a wonderful job making stories about everyday incidents interesting. In "Restless Hands," he tells the story of a man who quits smoking, and in "The Laundry Incident," the main character finds his clothes stolen off the line on Easter Sunday.

Here's what Calvino has to say about A Hatful of Cherries:

What was your inspiration for the story collection, A Hatful of Cherries?

In my childhood days back in my village in Galicia, during the winters, I was allowed to visit a school friend whose parents had much land, a big kitchen and plenty of wood for the fire. Eight or ten neighbours gathered there every evening.

At one end of the room the men played cards at a long table. At the other end sat the women on wooden benches by the open fire, telling stories, listening, knitting or dozing. Outside the dogs barked, the wind gnawed at the doors and window frames and the wolves howled. The fire cast flickering shadows on the walls as if in tune with the storytelling: tales of tormented animals roaming the earth, satanic envoys hunting for souls, men and women buried alive, children born with scales and tails, sold to circuses and freak shows, never to be heard from again.

Bernarda was my favourite storyteller. She was toothless and her voice sounded strange, unnatural. Moreover, her stories had a ring of authenticity about them: she always seemed to know someone who knew someone who had been present at the time...

I left the village, taking with me a love for the short narrative. I also took with me the genesis of many stories of my own. Some of these have appeared in A Hatful of Cherries and elsewhere, but many more, preserved by the exquisite pain of melancholic memory, are still waiting to be written.

Time passed and in 1998 as a first year Arts student at Melbourne University, I joined a writers' group and so began the pursuit, firstly of a clear, objective mode of expression in a language that was not my own, and secondly, of authenticity of voice, character, setting and other elements crucial to the weaving of experience and imagination into narrative fiction, for reality, in itself, does not make for good reading.

Do you think there is a theme that holds the whole book together?

I find it hard to look at my stories in-depth, but I sense an undertone of wistfulness and longing. I also think my stories create a new world for the reader. The villagers' quiet enthusiasm for living in the face of the challenges presented to them by a hostile universe is a constant theme throughout the collection.

In many of the stories that I have set against an Australian background, I have attempted to explore the plight of single migrant men, their loneliness, their fears, in their search for identity in a new land.

What is your favorite story in A Hatful of Cherries?

"Basilio." I still feel sorry for him and for Marta.

Do you have any plans to release another short story collection or maybe even a novel?

I hope to complete a novella in early 2010. I am also working on another collection of short stories.

If you could only own five books, what would they be and why?

Don Quixote by Miguel De Cervantes. For it's duality: we can laugh at Don Quixote, the mad, at times imbecile, and comic knight errant. Or we can watch him wander free through the grandeur and the misery of life like a force, like the shadow of human aspiration. And there is, of course, Sancho, the lazy, the "bagful of proverbs," with a peasant's down-to-earth reasoning to remind us of the real world.

Madam Bovary by Gustave Flaubert. Flaubert's novel is a brilliant portrayal of mediocrity and excellence. The former applies to the characters, the latter to the use of language. Both appear to be inseparable in the depicting of French provincial society of the period.

Short Stories by Anton Chekhov. For Chekhov's contribution to the genre and for his depicting of human misery alongside joy and pleasure.

The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway. I admire the simple use of language. And the main theme that human beings can retain dignity and honour in their struggle to exist.

A Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Using pure "magical realism," Marquez mixes the fantastic and the factual to give us the magical world of Macondo. This book always surprises me.

"They Are Only Dreams," featured in Fast Forward: A Collection of Flash Fiction, Volume 2, marks his first appearance in a U.S. publication.

Anna Horner

Diary of an Eccentric

Review – Grady Harp

2009-08-02T08:25:00.005+10:00

July 28, 2009

Fast Forward, Volume 2

Tasty Morsels of Literature

For those who enjoy the short story genre this little book is a treasure house. Guest editor K Scott Forman has selected sixty-three works of fiction from writers around the world and has grouped these little microstories into the categories 'play>, rewind<<, fast forward>>, stop/eject, and pause||’. The concept is that of treating these vignettes as selections from a screen as though the reader becomes a viewer with the controls at hand.

Despite the brevity of the stories they each convey an aspect of the human condition and as such bear re-reading after a story much later in the book references a similar thought: returning to the original piece that caught attention then seems to make each story blossom. For many readers some of the names of the authors will be instantly recognizable. For this reader, having read the book 'A Hatful of Cherries' by Felix Calvino suggested the quality of work the book represents - his story 'they are only dreams' is excerpted from that collection. But in addition to the simple almost naively written Calvino story there are complex tales that brush the pages with endless colors and strikes of imagination and creativity, making this collection truly a book for every reader's taste. FF>> Press (Fast Forward Press) has once again introduced a uniquely entertaining presentation of the best in brief literature, offering incentives to pursue the works of each of the writers presented here. Grady Harp (Los Angeles, CA United States)

Review – Scope

2009-06-30T07:23:00.004+10:00

May 14, 2009

In A Hatful of Cherries Felix Calvino offers the reader a charming taste of rural Spain and urban Australia. Born in Galicia in north-western Spain and later emigrating to Australia, the author’s background and life experiences are evident in this body of work.

Some stories in the collection are sweet, bitter, dark, rosy with the optimism of youth. Some are melancholy, mysterious. Others offer amusing or insightful glimpses of the everyday. All are rich with a sense of place, and plump with memorable characters.

Calvino’s words resonate with integrity and empathy. His writing style is lean, yet he uses original similes and metaphors to flesh out ideas and meanings in an appealing fashion. The reader can really visualise what the author is trying to convey in such vivid word-pictures as:

‘ … bristling like a scared echidna ...’

‘He wanted to teach him the trade which had passed through his family like an heirloom.’

‘ …she dropped like an apple from a tree …’ (of a swallow), and of the same bird:

‘How will she see in the dark?’ asked my sister at the dinner table.

‘The stars are her eyes,’ Grandpa said.

Many of the stories have a gentleness about them - even when the subject matter is far from gentle – and a reflective quality.

Not all stories will be to every reader’s taste, but that is the beauty of a collection: you can pick and choose, savour your favourites again and again or simply skip over those not quite to your liking.

While it is interesting and valuable to see your country from a ‘newcomer’s’ viewpoint, I confess I preferred the Spanish-based tales because they had the allure of far-off romantic places and conveyed something of the inhabitants’ customs, beliefs and attitudes. I’ve never visited the author’s country of birth. I don’t need to, for in this slim volume, he has brought that land and its people to me.

Whether his finely-drawn characters are bumping along a dirt track in Spain or cruising down Sydney’s Pitwater Road, they share the joys and sorrows, hopes and fears of people everywhere. They speak the universal language of the human heart.
This book adds to Australia’s literary treasure. Its contents join our collective memory, that part which stems from the stories migrants have brought – and continue to bring – to our shores whenever and wherever they sought new beginnings, another bite of the cherry.

Linda Stewart

Scope Vol 55 No 5, 2009

Scope : incorporating Fellowship news, the Brisbane …

Review - Grady Harp

2009-04-26T10:35:00.017+10:00

April 25, 2009

Taut, Simple Stories that Linger

Félix Calvino deserves a much wider audience here in the United States. His collection of short stories here gathered under the title A HATFUL OF CHERRIES are piquant brief morsels that range from a few pages to extended stories and every story manages to paint imagery and place and character so clearly with the most economical style that each appears like a flashback of thought in every reader's memory bank.

Calvino was born in Galicia and spent his childhood on a farm not unlike those scenes he so frequently recalls in these stories. Under the reign of General Franco, Calvino fled to England to study and work and eventually migrated to Australia where he currently lives and writes his magical prose. From these various regions Calvino gathers the fodder for his tales - stories that take place in Spain and in Australia with settings that range from dealing with the earth as a child to discovering love as a youth to encountering the realities of small community prejudices to simply celebrating the aspects of the very young to the very aged characters he describes so well.

Calvino's writing style is the opposite of florid. With a few brief sentences on a few pages he is able to bring the reader into the focal point of his stories that usually take a quiet twist at the end, a technique that makes reading a collection of short stories more like reading a full length novel, so engrossed is the reader in his ability to capture attention and imagination. Not that his writing is without color: for instance, in the story 'An Old Sheep' he writes 'In the boredom of the long nights and the sweetness of warm beds, couples rejoiced in their labours for new life, while in the next room death was busily harvesting among the old.' He knows well how to speak of love, of desire, of tragedy and of humor and is equally at home with each of these and other emotions.

Some astute publisher should capture the talents of this Spanish Australian writer. He deserves center stage in the arena of authors who have mastered the art of writing short stories!

Grady Harp (Los Angeles, CA

United States

)

See all my reviews

Chef Lee III Mix

2009-03-06T20:37:00.009+10:00

March 5, 2009

By Michelle
Don't remember, but I'm currently alternating between Felix Calvino's Hatful of Cherries and Bill Bryson's A Short History of Nearly Everything ... What is the one single wish for life? To do what makes me happy and make a living from ...
Chef Lee III Mix - http://notiris.livejournal.com/

Matilda

2008-12-17T22:08:00.011+10:00

December 17, 2008

www.middlemiss.org/weblog/matilda/

Review - Tom Jenks

2008-12-16T07:40:00.018+10:00

December 16, 2008

In Calvino's stories there is a lovely sense of touch, evocative detail, deep sympathy, humor, and, most of all, a celebration of life's riches.

Tom Jenks, Editor, Narrative Magazine

Review - Veny Armanno

2008-11-28T20:00:00.008+10:00

November 28, 2008

The stories in the collection A Hatful of Cherries are heartfelt, funny, intelligent and extremely skilled in their execution. The writing is also subtle and smooth. There are no airs and graces, no pretensions. And it’s this style that allows Felix Calvino to reside in the same house as such great writers as Giuseppe di Lampedusa, Italo Svevo, Italo Calvino, and perhaps most of all, the great Italian writer Cesare Pavese.

Veny Armanno

The Courier-Mail

2008-11-27T14:27:00.009+10:00

November 22-23, 2008

Top 10 Books

Indies

1 Brisbane’s Budget Bites, edited by Mei Yen Chua
2 Wall and Piece, by Banksy
3 The Brain That Changes Itself, by Norman Doidge
4 The White Tiger, by Aravind Adiga
5 The Slap, by Christos Tsiolkas
6 A Hatful of Cherries, by Felix Calvino
7 Wild Tea Cosies, by Loani Prior
8 Letters to Santa, by Andrew Daddo
9 The Tall Man, by Chloe Hooper
10 The Audacity of Hope, by Barack Obama

Brisbane’s Better Bookshops

www.news.com.au/couriermail

Review - The Barcelona Review

2008-11-15T00:12:00.010+10:00

November 15, 2008

Felix Calvino was born and raised on a farm in Galicia, the green, northwest coast of Spain. After moving to England to escape military service under Franco, he migrated to Australia in the late 1960s where he resides today. His debut collection of stories is written in a beautiful English that holds the reader captive and gives much pleasure.
A Hatful of Cherries is comprised of 16 stories, mostly quite short, with a few set in Australia, but the majority set in his native Galicia, back in the time just after the Civil War, which still looms in the collective mind of its inhabitants. Life is hard, food is scarce, and people work their farms as best they can. In a simple, but powerful prose, Calvino grabs the reader from the first sentence and never lets go. There is not a dull or weak story to be found; each is a little gem, easily transporting the reader from the mountains of post-civil war Galicia to a nightclub in contemporary Newport Beach, Australia, and other points down under.
In the longest piece, “Basilio,” we find the happily married Basilio—a somewhat withdrawn man due to his having a bit of a stammer and a withered arm—who began driving a pick-up and delivery van for the widow Perez just after the Civil War when “there were rumors that the dense and darkly wooded valley surrounding the road was a hiding place for criminals and bandits, but he never saw any.” We follow Basilio on one long day’s round of pick ups and deliveries, in which Calvino captures, through Basilio’s sensitive eye, the rough beauty of the country along with memorable sketches of the Galicians with whom he often interacts as well as his reflections on the war itself. Apart from the commonplace, the day will be full of surprises.
In “The Pocketknife” a man is reminded of childhood memories as he looks at a window display of pocketknives:

The law governing pocketknives was a source of argument among the men, or rather, the beginning of many arguments. The law regulated blade size, prohibited the aid of springs to open the blade, required the blade to fold into the handle, and so on . . . The law came into force after the war. People were to disarm, and stay disarmed. These were the Generalissimo’s wishes. I remember the Generalissimo. I saw him every day in a portrait hanging behind the teacher’s desk. I don’t remember the war. But I remember the people saying it was a bad war . .
“An Old Sheep” follows the son of a respected old sheep herder, parents now dead, who falls into dissolute ways, leaving the locals at odds as to how to deal with him; while “The Swallows” is a simple tale of a cuckoo who ends up in a swallows’ nest in a barn and shows how the household at the farm follows the bird’s plight.

The ever so delightful “A Hatful of Cherries” portrays a Galician couple who take in a young girl to help with the housekeeping, and follows their lives as they become curiously entwined, with the townspeople watching closely and with suspicion; while “Silvia” follows two Galician gentlemen with families who share a mistress until complications arise which must be resolved. We are reminded in this story and others of the strict ethical code of the community that can be quick to condemn, but is not heartless. They are a stalwart people, slightly backward from our 21st-century perspective perhaps, but with an inner strength and grit, and the ability to move with the rhythm of the land and the appreciation of simple pleasures.
As for Australia, particularly moving is the story of a woman from Galicia who, through a long correspondence with a fellow Galician now farming in Australia, has taken the bold step of flying to that far away country to become his bride. Our narrator is the intermediary who greets her at the airport before she boards a second plane to her destination where things are not exactly what she had expected. In another of the Australian stories, we find a man running from love, and in yet another we find a group of middle-aged men looking for wives at the city’s new hot spot.
There is a gentle, quiet passion in all of these stories; every emotion, every word spoken runs true; it never once sinks into sentimentalism yet we are moved by the characters. The author’s humanity shines through, and the stories linger long after the final page. I hope to read more. J.A.

In this issue, see A Hatful of Cherries and Detour

www.barcelonareview.com

Queensland Books listing

2008-11-12T15:20:00.002+10:00

August 2008

Welcome to the latest edition of Queensland Books!
This newsletter profiles exciting publications by authors from Queensland, Australia to international publishing and film industry professionals.
You are receiving this update because you have attended a Queensland Writers Showcase in Los Angeles, New York or Taipei, hosted by the Queensland Government Australia.

	A Hatful of Cherries by Felix Calvino
	The Trout Opera by Matt Condon
	Burnt Sunshine by Estelle Pinney
	A House in Fez: Building a House in the Ancient Heart of Morocco by Suzanna Clarke
	Ishmael and the Return of the Dugongs by Michael Gerard Bauer

Hatful of Cherries by Felix Calvino

Synopsis

Felix Calvino’s short stories are subtle and soulful, of life growing up in the villages of northern Spain under Franco, and in Australia, where the ghosts and habits of the old country have not vanished. The stories in A Hatful of Cherries first appeared in a variety of literary journals: `Detour' in Semper; `Winners and Losers' in Social Alternatives; `An Old Sheep' in Quadrant; `The Swallows' in UQ vanguard. The project was Government assisted through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body.

Author Bio

FELIX CALVINO was born in Galicia, on the northwest coast of Spain and grew up on a farm. To avoid military service under General Franco, he went to England where he worked and studied English, his third language. He migrated to Australia in the late sixties, settled in Sydney and worked in the travel, restaurant and wine industries. In 1996 he moved to Melbourne and a year later, a long-held ambition for a tertiary education was fulfilled when he was admitted to the University of Melbourne. There he studied English and Spanish as components of his Bachelor of Arts degree.

August 2008 Welcome to the latest edition of Queensland Books ..

Review - Goodreads

2008-11-12T14:41:00.007+10:00

September 18, 2008

The beauty of simplicity and honesty is combined with the skill powerful storytelling. Although the title of the book is taken from one of the stories, each story is like a cherry. One is not enough, each is a fragment. The stories are fragments in time resonating with the pain of love, loss, escape, loneliness but told in a fresh open style that makes each story glow. I was very sad to finish this beautiful little book.
Janet.

Goodreads

Review - Writing Queensland

2008-11-12T14:40:00.020+10:00

A Hatful of Cherries

by Cheryl Hayden

There is a disarming charm and clarity pervading this collection of short stories by Galician writer Felix Calvino, but also a tantalising difference in the story telling between those set in the country of his childhood and those set in contemporary Australian.

For this reviewer, the Galician stories provide the same sensory delight as experienced by viewing a simple woodcut. Some what one-dimensional and linear in treatment, and with far more ‘telling’ than ‘showing’ in the writing style, these stories unfold much as do traditional folktales, with life, death, fate and basic human need as common themes. In "Don't Touch Anything" life and death play out in an earthen-floored cottage as they might have done for millennia while in "An Old Sheep, rural life goes on in the face of the elements. Not that all Calvino’s characters are leading simple rustic lives lived passively against the rhythm of seasonal change. In "A Hatful of Cherries", a school teacher, her husband and housekeeper become objects of village curiosity as the quest to have a child takes over their lives, while in "Two Men at the Border , "Miguel and Jose" risk everything for freedom. In "Detour", fate plays poor Serafin a cruel hand when his car breaks down.

If the Galician stories leave one with the sense of having enjoyed an exhibition of wonderfully crafted woodcuts, the Australian stories are highly detailed paintings, filled with the complex drama of contemporary urban life: light and sound of action, choice and conflict, but most interestingly, full of the modern choices largely absent from the life of the Galician villages. "Restless Hands" takes us through the agonies of quitting smoking, "Winners and Losers" illuminates the joy of the unexpected return of a wallet lost in Melbourne’s Victoria Market and "A New Place" exposes the anticipation and thrill tossed by choice and chance in a Sydney nightclub.

Why the stories are placed as they are throughout the anthology is not clear, unless it’s to highlight the difference between life in rural Galicia with that in metropolitan Australia, for the almost random interspersing of the two ‘genres’ certainly achieves that most effectively, if not somewhat disarming.

While the stories in "A Hatful of Cherries" resonate with the austerity of folktales, they are not fables and do not set out to teach us lessons. Rather, they are illuminated observations of everyday human dramas and, if the writing has everything to teach us, it is about the joy that comes from reading such spare and sparkling prose.
www.qwc.asn.au

Review - El Correo Gallego

2008-11-12T14:39:00.049+10:00

May 5, 2008

Quizás fueron Roy Boland, de la Universidad de Sydney, y Roberto Esposto, de Queensland, los primeros que me hablaron de Félix Calviño. Félix estaba obteniendo un éxito increíble en Australia, gracias a una colección de relatos, en muchos de los cuales hablaba de su infancia en Galicia. Tanto éxito que el aclamado escritor australiano David Malouf dijo de A Hatful of Cherries (Un sombrero lleno de cerezas): "se trata de recuerdos de otras vidas en otro lugar, algo muy vivo, emocionante, humorístico, extraño, un regalo para el lector, escrito de un modo austero y tierno. Calviño es la nueva voz en esta habitación, una voz que te hace detenerte, individual, y, ahora que nos hemos dado cuenta de que existe, resulta que es indispensable para todos los que construyen nuestra historia".

Que un escritor reconocido, un autor muy importante, como David Malouf, te dedique unas palabras tan elogiosas es un motivo suficiente para estar flotando durante días. Pero Félix Calviño es de una pasta especial. No parece dispuesto a tirar la casa por la ventana, y llega a afirmar, sin inmutarse, que escribe "para entretenerse". Para algunos críticos australianos, estamos, en cambio, ante una de las nuevas voces, poderosas, en lengua inglesa. Por Calviño ha escrito su libro, publicado por Arcadia, en inglés. A pesar de ser su segunda, o mejor, su tercera lengua (después del gallego y del castellano). A pesar de eso se ha atrevido. Y hoy la suya una de las colecciones de relatos más populares en las antípodas, a pesar de la gran competencia de autores soberbios, excelentes. Y a pesar de que Calviño, qué duda cabe, no escribe en su lengua materna.

Roy Boland, de la Universidad de Sydney, no tiene dudas acerca del fenómeno Calviño. Siendo él mismo el máximo especialista en literatura gallega que hay en Australia, Boland cree que estamos ante un fenómeno propio de este mundo multicultural en el que nos movemos. "Yo conocí a Calviño desde que llegó aquí, en los años setenta", me dice Boland desde su casa de Sídney.

"En realidad se podría decir que es uno de los fundadores de la comunidad hispana aquí, en Australia. Un hombre entusiasta que venía de Inglaterra, que había recorrido mucho. Nada raro para alguien que viene de Galicia, eso desde luego: conozco bien la historia", añade Boland. "Había emigrantes españoles aquí en los setenta, y, evidentemente, de Galicia, pero muchos tenían dificultades de adaptación, especialmente con el idioma. Había que ver cómo Félix se dedicó a ayudarles, a facilitarles la integración en lo que luego se llamó Little Spain. Él venía de Inglaterra, y tenía la ventaja, muy grande, de conocer el idioma. Calviño era además un hombre de negocios, y muchos de los emigrantes tuvieron la posibilidad de encontrar trabajo gracias a él, sobre todo en sectores que él conocía bien, como la construcción o la industria alimentaria". Boland, sin embargo, no puede dejar de citar el lado literario de Félix Calviño. Para él, fue como una revelación. "Desde luego, fue algo muy interesante. Desde el principio había deseado ser escritor, así que dejó de lado su floreciente carrera como empresario y se dedicó a estudiar lengua y literatura en La Trobe. También estudió escritura creativa, que es una materia muy habitual en los programas anglosajones (no tanto en España, diría yo). Así que pronto estuvo codo con codo con autores de éxito como Peter Carey, o el propio David Malouf, publicando en revistas como Quadrant o Meanjin. No hay ninguna duda de que la evolución vital de Félix Calviño en esta tierra ha sido excepcional. Hasta que ha aparecido su colección de relatos, o de cuentos, A Hatful of Cherries, que es una mezcla perfecta entre Australia y Galicia. En cuanto al idioma, es muy australiana, claro está. Pero el espíritu y el alma de las narraciones son básicamente gallegos. Lleva aquí muchísimo tiempo, sí, pero sigue siendo un gallego de verdad. Vive ahora en la tropical Queensland, rodeado de buganvillas, surf, críquet y rugbi, pero no pierde la ocasión para hacer un pulpo á feira, o para invitarte a un albariño.Sin duda alguna, Félix Calviño es un curioso ejemplo de la extensión de Galicia hasta el mismo corazón del idioma inglés. No sé si su obra se publicará en gallego, o en castellano (ofrecemos un fragmento de ‘Las golondrinas’ en esta misma página), pero lo que es seguro es que Galicia será más conocida en el mundo australiano, y en el mundo anglosajón en general, a partir del éxito de A Hatful of Cherries. "Hay que reconocer que Calviño llegó a Australia ya como un adulto", sigue diciéndome Boland, " y eso es muy importante. No tuvo período de aprendizaje infantil, porque él se crio en Galicia, pero sí que nos sorprendió a todos cuando apareció con su colección de cuentos en inglés, en un gran inglés: fue una decisión personal, claro, pero no hay duda alguna de que utiliza un inglés muy persuasivo para el lector". Para Boland, "Calviño te recuerda, literariamente la trayectoria de muchos autores hispanos que escriben en los Estados Unidos. Algunos nacieron allí, pero otros no. Es el caso de Julia Álvarez, o de Junot Díaz, ambos de ascendencia dominicana. A mí me recuerda mucho casos como estos, ya digo. Y está claro que cuando por fin te integra y te insertas en una sociedad determinada tiendes a publicar en su idioma. Estos hispanos prefirieron escribir en inglés, porque lo dominaba, imitar a Faulkner o a Hemingway antes que intentar escribir como Vargas Llosa o como García Márquez, que eran sus verdaderos referentes iniciales. Yo creo que la situación de Félix Calviño puede explicarse, más o menos, de la misma manera", concluye el catedrático Roy Boland, gran conocedor del escritor nacido cerca de Lalín.

En efecto, Félix Calviño nació en la localidad pontevedresa de Alemparte, no lejos de Lalín, en 1944. A partir de ahí su vida va a ser un ejercicio de idas y de vueltas, pero siempre con un movimiento continuo. "Se fue primero a Inglaterra para evitar el servicio militar bajo el régimen de Franco", escucho. Y él mismo lo refleja en su biografía, breve, al comienzo de la colección de relatos. "Pero a finales de los sesenta, como había grandes facilidades, decidió viajar a Australia. Y allí se quedó. Dedicado al comercio del vino, o de la restauración y la alimentación".

Félix Calviño parece contento con su éxito. Pero siempre con tranquilidad exquisita. Es el hombre tranquilo. Sus narraciones, breves, lentas, un tanto inquietantes, no se apartan del lenguaje llano y tranquilo. Nada que ver con barroquismos o manierismos. El lenguaje fluye con tanta naturalidad de la pluma de Félix Calviño que a veces se diría que ha estado hablando inglés toda su vida. O que el inglés es su lengua materna. "Lo he interiorizado mucho", dice a este diario. "Pero, desde luego, estoy muy satisfecho con este libro, porque puedo decir que con él he aprendido a escribir. Mejor dicho, me enseñó a dar los primeros pasos en el proceso misterioso de forjar la unión de la memoria y la imaginación. De ahí nace la necesidad de leer, leer siempre y de todo, disciplina necesaria para superar los problemas asociados con el manejo de una lengua extranjera, y que luego se convierte en placer".

A Hatful of Cherries (Un sombrero lleno de cerezas), recoge, como hemos dicho, el espíritu galaico, innegable, y la experiencia australiana de su autor. Casi a partes iguales, las narraciones de Calviño se dirigen hacia la memoria, hacia la infancia, hacia la dureza de la posguerra, o bien hacia algunos sucesos, aparentemente sin importancia, en las calles de las ciudades australianas. Con un lenguaje sencillo, a veces aplastantemente sencillo, sin concesiones al manierismo ni a la oscuridad, pero siempre con un deje de suspense, o de tragedia subyacente, Félix Calviño ofrece sus historias. Boland, que ha analizado los textos en particular, asegura que "esa forma de escribir, sin duda, ayuda a controlar un lenguaje aprendido, un lenguaje que no es el nativo. Pero yo creo, sobre todo, que con su estilo Calviño consigue capturar el espíritu de los gallegos, es un caso claro de inglés escrito a la manera galaica. Bueno, y a la manera australiana en muchos casos". En cuentos como ‘Don’t Touch Anything’, ‘Detour’ o ‘Basilio’ se ve claramente, ese ámbito gallego, que el autor no ha olvidado en absoluto. Pero al tratarse en inglés, directamente por el autor, el texto adquiere una extraña, una curiosa dimensión. Estas dieciséis historias están cargadas de la fuerza del azar, del fátum, de acontecimientos cotidianos que presentan alguna amenaza en potencia. Y no falta el humor. Y la ironía. Y, de vez en cuando, pero sin caer jamás en la sensiblería, un toque de ternura. El escritor australiano Venero Armanno dijo en la presentación de este libro que, lo mejor de todo, es que no hay aquí romanticismos. "El estilo es tan natural para el autor como respirar", dijo ante los asistentes al acto. "No creo que esté lejos de Lampedusa, de Svevo, de Italo Calvino (¡pero no son parientes!) o de mi favorito, Pavese", añadió. Su voz, galaica por tantas cosas, es una sorpresa en el mundo de las letras anglosajonas.

José Miguel Alonso Giráldez

El Correo Gallego.es

Félix Calviño publica en inglés un libro de relatos galaicos en ...

___________________________

UQ News Online –

Issue 572 March 2008

_____________________

_________

Las golondrinas. Un relato de Félix Calviño (fragmento) | El Correo ...

Review - Goodreads

2008-11-12T14:39:00.038+10:00

February 22, 2008

Tenderly rendered, haunting, compassionate tales from a new voice down under.

James.

Goodreads

Review - Social Alternatives

2008-11-12T14:37:00.016+10:00

January 20, 2008

A Hatful of Cherries Short Stories by Félix Calvino. (2007). Kew VIC: Arcadia (an imprint Australian Scholarly Publishing). ISBN 978 1 74097 167 6

David Malouf's back cover notes feature three particularly apt adjectives to summarise this balanced collection from Felix Calvino: 'moving, humorous, strange'. It is the tension and movement between the humorous and the moving, within each tale and between separate stories that sustains the text as a complete work.

The oscillation between settings further develops this synchronicity. The stories move through a range of real and imagined spaces. There are Galician villages, set, variously but without date in the first half of the twentieth century. There are contemporary city scapes in Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane and even places of ghostly occupation. There is a contrast intimated between these worlds. The narration is often omniscient, collective in the stories of the past, set in the farming regions of the Spanish northwest coast. When first person is occasionally used it is usually through a voice remembering childhood reflecting with the insight of historical distance. But in the stories set in contemporary Australia first person narration is used, creating more individualised reflections. The work is not fragmented by the disparate settings: all the parts authentically reflect an archetypal Australian carrying the historical narratives of many places of origin.

The humour lies in the simple telling of characters and their perspectives and the irony this produces. In one story, a child narrator reflects simply and with out analysis on his Grandfather “Grandfather had become disillusioned with women when my Grandmother died young and without his consent” (Calvino, 2007: 42). In another the pastor rails from the pulpit at the unknown and unconfessed sinner who has got the teacher's servant 'in trouble', out of wedlock. The unknown male parishioner's sin is twofold. The first sin is production of the illegitimate foetus. The second and greater sin is the failure to reveal his singular culpability, thus casting guilt and suspicion over all men. One of the stories tells of the transition from smoker to ex-smoker with great wit. The ironies and privations of this contemporary Australian phenomenon are deftly explored.

Calvino's gift lies in the ability to catch a moment or a community completely. Many of the earlier stories in the sequence operate to build individual memories into a sense of a collective community. Time and environment are not separated from the connection with community. The seasons move and are made sense of through their varying impacts on old and young. It is only after this connectedness is established along side similarly convivial tales in contemporary settings that the reader, now warmed, is led through a series of deeply 'moving' stories of disconnection and threat.

The style is ever subtle and austere, in both the humorous and moving stories (many are both) and this lends aesthetic weight. There are a few stories set in the Spanish civil war and its devastating aftermath. Calvino demonstrates that civil war is that most uncivil of wars. War traditionally works by defamiliarising the combatants, and staging the conflict in special zones. Calvino reveals a war arena in which combatants are not clearly distinguished and where the everyday mixes with the sinister and threatening. One story at the centre of the work 'Basilio' delivers this mix of the everyday and of threat beautifully. It is a well crafted unravelling of a single day: unembellished descriptions of the daily actions of a delivery man mix with his own frequent and rustic ruminations on his life, hopes and surroundings. This patterning soon reveals a complex and warm character, of particular strengths and weaknesses. While the story is tragic it is full of hope and love.

All the stories are full of hope and love, even the ostensibly satirical tales, such as the one depicting the physically flawed men in their mid thirties, 'parents without partners'. These men vainly desire intimacy and inclusion in sophisticated night spots so pathos is suggested but it is interrupted by moments of beauty and hope. Again and again the ordinary is depicted in such a way as to glimpse moments of attainable epiphany such as in the personalised records of lost clothes from a metropolitan clothes line, an unexpectedly found wallet, or a child's response to a pocket knife.

The stories are subtle and recognise life is about paradox, complexity, the living of it not a stable moral. Some are purposively brief records of a meeting or a chance occurrence. This means endings are without clear answers, only partial answers and questions. This is refreshing and satisfying, propelling the reader into the next story in the collection. I eagerly await Calvino's next work.

Clare Archer-Lean

Social Alternatives Vol 26 No 4, 2007

www.socialalternatives.com

Review - David Malouf

2008-11-12T14:34:00.013+10:00

September 26, 2007

Lively, moving, humorous, strange, these small records of other lives in another place are a gift, and so is the austere and tender mode of their telling. Calvino’s is a new voice in the room, individual, arresting, and now that we have been aware of it, indispensable to the many others that make up our story.

David Malouf

http://www.randomhouse.com.au/