Benjamín Labatut

he was not so much interested in the world as he was invaded by its many forms.

the man who pulled bread from air

He spent nine months there, consumed by hatred, humiliated by the conditions the victorious parties had imposed on his adopted country, and feeling betrayed by the cowardice of the generals, who had surrendered rather than fighting to the last man.

Cantor was born and raised in Russia, a nation whose inhabitants have become famous for their depth of feeling, the intensity of their religious and political beliefs, and a certain inclination for all things tragic,

Meanwhile, Nelly said, artists had already fully embraced it; she believed that the rediscovery of the irrational was the driving force behind all vanguard movements, movements that, even to a lay observer, were evidently suffused with a Faustian, boundless energy, a haste, a tragic fall in which everything was permitted.