The surname Castro has been synonymous with Cuba since January 1959, first under Fidel, and then, after . Katy Carl:Besides Augustine, what writers have been most influential for you? Carlos Eire is now a distinguished history professor at Yale University, but in 1959 he was an eight-year-old boy living in Havana who went by the name of Carlos Nieto. DB: I cant help but think of Animal Farm. Eires facts are never flat; he can follow the simplest details in surprising directions, all of which lead to either hilarious or deeply poignant conclusions, most often both. BA:Your memoir includes seven proofs of the existence of God that would startle many a philosopher, proofs that emphasize surprising resemblances that exist between concrete and tangible things, almost like metaphors come alive. CE: Well, Animal Farm is perfect. So when I found out from my publisher that I couldnt publish it as fictionwell, I begged, please let me do it as fiction. Then I begged to be able to take out many things that made me look very bad. In class its always risky, its always dangerous. (laughs) I had the same kind of relationship between the movie and the day and place in which it was seen. And, of course, my view has changed, and I think that's one of my chief interests as a scholar -- dealing with the history of death and the way in which the afterlife has been configured in the West. Guillermo Cabrera Infante had a tremendous impact on me when I was about thirty. I was worried that I'd offended Carlos Eire. Carlos Eire is the T. Lawrason Riggs Professor of History & Religious Studies at Yale University. His mother would eventually join him a few years later, but never his father. Even worse, what ends up happening in every socialist or communism society in history proves this; you end up with a privileged oligarchy with plenty of self-interest and, their job becomes to prevent anyone else from joining their privilege group or from having any self-interest. (laughs) But they made me go to church and gave me money to put into the collection basket. [Some have thought] that I am not a good Catholic because I associate with people who are not religious at all. Riggs Professor of History and Religious Studies at Yale University. Im putting myself out [in the book] in the way that I would in the confessional. Do You Know the Name of YourRepresentative? And that's how old I am. 'A Very Brief History' Abbreviates Forever, 'Waiting for Snow in Havana' by Carlos Eire. Who dismembered this lumpy, clucking creature and turned it into a geometry lesson? I am! Eire received his Bachelor of Arts in History and Theology in 1973 from Loyola University, Chicago. As workers have said in every socialist state, they pretend to pay us and we pretend to work. "And there's a Catholic superstition where if you have a question and open that book at random, the answer will be on that page.". There seems to be a certain sameness in his characters, which is why I couldnt read past the second or third book of his. Why are they a proof? He said that anyone who gets moved around a lot will have problems for that reason. . Carlos Eire. One news report this week was about a dissident leader who was visited in his home by the police. Eire earned his PhD at Yale University in 1979 and is now the T. Lawrason Riggs . Human beings are not only capable of reading deeper meanings into things but seem to be drawn to deeper meanings in everything. If you move any child before the age of thirteen, even when you move your child with you, you turn your child into an exile because the attachment is that deep. / And the reader. My interest in Eire had stemmed mainly from my position as a Hispanic writing in English, but these words called to attention a deeper part of me. Its difficult to exchange ideas precisely because of that atmosphere; the liberal atmosphere is taken to be so normative, so utterly real, so objective, that anyone who disagrees and says, by the way this is water, youre immediately pegged as not being very smart or as perhaps being even evil. He competed in the men's downhill at the 1952 Winter Olympics. You have to scratch or dig to tap into it. He used to go fishing for soulsthats what he would call it. EIN 27-4581132 BA:Let me ask you about another writer that came to mind while reading your work. It's been cut down the middle, diagonally, and the square has been turned into two triangles. I very much identified with that. Renew or manage your subscription here. This is how I think now; Im so completely separated from my Cuban roots as an adult that I have no non-anglophone audience in mind. According to this view, there are places in the world the Third and Second World that are incapable of having a full democracy, so they have to have this. In the 80s I was already teaching, but I noted, and it might be where I was, I was teaching at the University of Virginia, and thats when the whole yuppy phenomenon was at play, but at UVA there were a lot more conservatives, conservative students than I was used to. Mark Twain. 1973 - Loyola University, Chicago Theres no artifice there. 1988), Evelyn Grace (b. Is it a bad omen, this sandwich? Its unknowing as much as knowingif youre going to know and intuit the divine, which is totally unlike us, it has to be through something that is both a proof and a denial, all wrapped up in one because thats how our minds work. It reminds me of the sandwiches served at my first communion reception, at the Havana Yacht Club, back when the world was still spinning in the right direction. Later reunited with his mom, Eire has not been back to Cuba since. One of my children asked me about three months ago, Dad, when you read the Gospel in church, why do you always find something to laugh about? For example, Jesus saying Who touched me? And then the apostles: With all these people around, you ask us who touched you? Of course, he knew! Carlos Eire's father remembered living during the time of Christ. He is also co-author of Jews, Christians, Muslims: An Introduction to Monotheistic Religions (Prentice Hall, 1997). Another is Guillermo Cabrera Infante; another is Jorge Luis Borges. The protesters called him a murderer. CNPJ. Carlos Eire, who received his PhD from Yale in 1979, specializes in the social, intellectual, religious, and cultural history of late medieval and early modern Europe, with a focus on both the Protestant and Catholic Reformations; the history of popular piety; and the history of the supernatural, and the history of death. The Beacon is the student blog of the William F. Buckley, Jr. Im the wrong kind of person, because I fled from a socialist utopia and consider that socialist utopia Hell on Earth. I left when I was 11, but even at that age I could tell something awful was going on. . Carlos Eire was one of 14,000 children airlifted out of Cuba in 1962. 2 people have recommended Carlos Henrique Join now to view. Catholics have not discovered it because its not an obviously Catholic book. I first heard of Eire shortly after graduating from college in 2005, when I was thinking of pursuing graduate studies in history. This moment is unprecedented, and previous protests dont even come close. The original version was a little too anti-Disney. Carlos Eire, writer and professor, discusses his memoir of migrating to the U.S. from Cuba, "Learning to Die in Miami: Confessions of a Refugee Boy." Present. CE:There are several, but theyre a very odd assortment. So no ones noticed. This chicken meal offends me, greatly, and scares the hell out of me. Also, Venezuela, which once supported Cuba with lots of free oil, has already collapsed, and Cubans must now deal with constant electricity blackouts because they dont have oil to run their power stations. THE QUIET GIRL made history as the first Irish-language film nominated for an Oscar. I was once disinvited to a university conference, and the reason why was that I represented the oppression of the Cuban people by the Cuban-American exile community. Big problem, this likeness between avian and reptile flesh: It's all part of the evolution that made us humans what we are -- so different from birds and snakes, and yet so much like them. DB: Yeah, it just comes to mind immediately. But behind all that is the whole process of practicing. When I write about Catholicswell, I am a Catholic and I see anything I see as a Catholic would. Our brains tell us at the very same time, Look, that cant be, and Yes, it must beand were sort of stuck with this. It's so orderly, so controlled, so geometrical, so colorless, this plate of food. This transcript has been lightlyedited for clarity. Did you conceive of your work as being in the tradition of Augustine? Carlos Eire was born in Havana, Cuba, on 23 November 1950. He is a historian of late medieval and early modern Europe . Published online by Cambridge University Press: 27 September 2019 C. Scott Dixon Article Metrics Save PDF Share Cite Rights & Permissions Abstract An abstract is not available for this content. Theyre ridiculous and its their ridiculousness that makes them so serious. So far, I have not seen your book mentioned in a single one of these discussions, despite the fact that it is thoroughly suffused with a sacramental vision of the world and that it won the National Book Award in 2003. Thats what happens to any minority oppressed by a majority. This article is available to Christian Century magazine subscribers only. . And I think coincidence and metaphorthey both point to something beyond themselves. Coincidence of opposites is at the heart of the matter, which is the way we think and what we can actually know. "I can't go back because I'm an official enemy of the state," he explained. CE:This is proof that out of all other texts, the Gospels are different. He obtained his doctoral degree from Yale University in 1979. 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