A fairy white dress, plenty of bohemian ornaments on the wrists, funky sunglasses she wore except for the one she wore when she read her speech—although her foot was injured and she couldn't stand for long, but her back was straight as long as she stood—it was difficult to guess Maria Kodama's actual age from the outside. She was the second wife of the Argentine literary master Borges and later the sole heir to Borges's literary legacy, and traveled non-stop to disseminate Borges's works. Recently, the "Atlas of Borges - Jorge Luis Borges and Maria Kodama Travel Photography Touring Exhibition" opened at the Jing'an District Cultural Center, and Maria Kodama attended the opening ceremony. When asked if she had a happy life with the master, her answer was very succinct: "Of course, otherwise I wouldn't be here." ”
What does travel mean for the blind elderly Borges? He had answered this question in a short, poetic chapter in a thin Atlas—"the seven colors of the rainbow and the twenty letters on the alphabet; then the discovery of faces, maps, animals, celestial bodies; and finally the discovery of doubt, faith, and almost complete certainty of one's own ignorance." ”
During the journey, Maria Kodama was Borges's eye. "What does travel mean? In the standard Spanish dictionary, it refers to the action of going from one place to another, but does this definition fully explain how travel feels to us? Although language is such a vague tool, it is the only tool we can rely on to create literature and make history. Maria Kodama said.
This year marks the 120th anniversary of Borges's birth, and more than 130 wonderful photographs of Borges's later years of travel photography in Borges's Atlas – Jorge Luis Borges and Maria Kodama's travel photography tour for the first time are frozen in Borges's later years. In the 20th century, Borges went to Geneva with his family and was deeply shaken by the war and the people who suffered because of it. The element of travel is always in Borges's blood—his grandmother came to Argentina from England and began living in a desert, telling Borges her story. Eventually, the stories grandma told, the stories from Dad's library, and Borges's own travel experiences converged into his writing. ”
The encounter between Maria Kodama and Borges is legendary. In Shanghai, Kodama shared an interesting story. At the time, she was about 12 years old. "I grew up thinking of a literature teacher, but I was so shy, so shy that whenever strangers came to my house, I had to hide in the closet. I was talking so quietly that I guess there was no way to become a teacher. One day, my dad's friend told me that if I was interested in literature, I must go and listen to Borges's lectures. Dad said I definitely couldn't understand it, but let me go anyway. When I arrived at the lecture site, I was surprised to find that Borges spoke in a softer voice than I did, and if such a person could become a teacher, then I would be able to. ”
In the 1960s, the name Borges, along with his world-stunning poems and novels, first appeared to Chinese readers. His apocalyptic personal lyricism alienates him from any tradition. As a role model, he influenced almost all avant-garde writers of the 20th century, and he also influenced me. Sun Ganlu, one of the representative figures of avant-garde writers and vice chairman of the Shanghai Writers Association, said, "Ms. Kodama brought more than 130 travel photos of Borges that have never been exhibited before, giving us the opportunity to follow in Borges's footsteps and experience the wonderful and rich world that the master traveled, and once again explore the source of his inspiration in one photo after another." ”
In the preface to the Atlas, Borges records: "Maria Kodama and I were pleasantly surprised to discover different and unique sounds, languages, morning and evening, cities, gardens, and people. It is hoped that these chapters will be commemorated for the long and wonderful journey that will continue. And many years after Borges's death, Maria Kodama still loves to travel, "Sometimes I ask myself, how did all these tours, my travels with Borges, come about?" When I think about these things, I feel wonderful, like a dream. There are so many images that appear in the memories that I can think of different places in the whole world where we have been. The photographs on display were taken in those places, and we were all happy and open when we took these pictures, so they are very important in my mind. "What fascinates me about the trip is that I meet different cultures and people, and I learn a lot of things", as a new trip, Maria Kodama's eyes of Shanghai is very wonderful, "Pudong's new and the old on the other side are intertwined into a whole, I like these two sides of Shanghai."
As the theme of the exhibition, Atlas is a collection of poems written by Borges in 1984 and belongs to his late mature works. Borges wrote poems about what he saw and felt when he traveled with Maria Kodama, each with its own chapters and amusing. The book records the chapters written by poets after traveling to many countries, mainly prose poems, with different lengths and unique characteristics. The exhibition site is specially set up a reading space, and the visitors and readers will be able to read the "Complete Works of Borges" introduced and published by Shanghai Translation Publishing House, and the Atlas is also included.
The exhibition spans the entire Shanghai Book Fair until September 1, where two Borges works sharing events will be held on August 7 and 17.