The only possible cosmopolitanism, far removed from [current] pathetic sectarianism, is evident and possible through the postnational retrieval of the worldly cultures that exist now and with contemporary forces but with historical references to pre-modern imperial domains.
▪️Hamid Dabashi, 2016
![Javier Marías (20 September 1951-11 September 2022)
Extracts from NEGRA ESPALDA DEL TIEMPO (1998; translated by Esther Allen as DARK BACK OF TIME in 2001).
I believe I've still never mistaken fiction for reality, though I have mixed them together more than once, as everyone does, not only novelists or writers but everyone who has recounted anything since the time we know began, and no one in that known time has done anything but tell and tell, or prepare and ponder a tale, or plot one. Anyone can relate an anecdote about something that happened, and the simple fact of saying it already distorts and twists it, language can't reproduce events and shouldn't attempt to […] because words – even when spoken, even at their crudest – are in and of themselves metaphorical and therefore imprecise, and cannot be imagined without ornament, though it is often involuntary; there is ornament in even the most arid exposition and frequently in interjections and insults as well.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:liweifjp72sawd2tfklp6egk/bafkreifx7pnzxniqowrwqud3x26iggxnjaxan4wook2f3woabs4wgdrihq)
