Thank you to everyone who joined for this session!

Our text for this session was The Nobodies by Eduardo Galeano (translated by Cedric Belfrage), posted below.

Our prompt for this session was: “Write about the dreams of the nobodies.”

More details on this session will be posted, so check back!

Participants are warmly encouraged to share what you wrote below (“Leave a Reply”), to keep the conversation going here, bearing in mind that the blog of course is a public space where confidentiality is not assured.

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Please join us for our next session Wednesday July 14th at 6pm EDT, with more times listed on our Live Virtual Group Sessions page.

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Los Nadies (Eduardo Galeano)
Sueñan las pulgas con comprarse un perro
y sueñan los nadies con salir de pobre,
que algún mágico día llueva de pronto la buena suerte,
que llueva a cántaros la buena suerte:
pero la buena suerte no llueve ayer,
ni hoy ni mañana ni nunca,
ni en llovizna cae del cielo la buena suerte,
por mucho que los nadies la llamen y aunque les pique
la mano izquierda,
o se levanten con el pie derecho,
o empiecen el año cambiando de escoba.
Los nadies:
los hijos de nadie, los dueños de nada.
Los nadies,
los ningunos, los ninguneados.
Corriendo las liebres, muriendo la vida, jodidos,
rejodidos:
Que no son, aunque sean.
Que no hablan idiomas sino dialectos.
Que no profesan religiones, sino supersticiones.
Que no hacen arte, sino artesanía.
Que no practican cultura, sino folclore.
Que no son seres humanos, sino recursos humanos.
Que no tienen cara, sino brazos.
Que no tienen nombre, sino número.
Que no figuran en la historia universal.
Sino en las páginas rojas de la prensa local.
Los nadies.
Que cuestan menos que la bala que los mata.

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The Nobodies by Eduardo Galeano (translated by Cedric Belfrage)
Fleas dream of buying themselves a dog, and nobodies dream of escaping poverty: that one magical day good luck will suddenly rain down on them–will rain down in buckets. But good luck doesn’t rain down yesterday, today, tomorrow, or ever. Good luck doesn’t even fall in a fine drizzle, no matter how hard the nobodies summon it, even if their left hand is tickling, or if they begin the new day with their right foot, or start the new year with a change of brooms.

The nobodies: nobody’s children, owners of nothing.
The nobodies: the no ones, the nobodied, running like rabbits, dying through life, screwed every which way.

Who are not, but could be.
Who don’t speak languages, but dialects.
Who don’t have religions, but superstitions.
Who don’t create art, but handicrafts.
Who don’t have culture, but folklore.
Who are not human beings, but human resources.
Who do not have faces, but arms.
Who do not have names, but numbers.
Who do not appear in the history of the world, but in the police blotter of the local paper.
The nobodies, who are not worth the bullet that kills them.