Efrosini Manda-Lazaru / Euphrosyne Manta–Lazarou

Efrosini Manda-Lazaru je rođena na Kipru. Studirala je grčku filologiju na Filozofskom fakultetu Univerziteta u Atini. Od 1995. do 2003. godine je radila u Službi za edukativnu psihologiju pri Ministarstvu obrazovanja i kulture Kipra kao koordinatorka za specijalne programe za gimnazije, kao i za sastavljanje pedagoških priručnika. Od 2003. do 2011. godine je radila kao koordinatorka programa za Zonu edukativnih prioriteta u školama Stare Nikozije. Piše poeziju i prozu (uglavnom za decu). Dobitnica je Nacionalne nagrade Kipra za poeziju, za knjigu Noje u gradu, objavljenu 2012. godine. Poezija joj je prevođena na italijanski i francuski jezik. 

Poezija:

Dani Tkalje i Noći Nage, 2002.

... u ljubav ćemo ili u smrt..., 2005.

Donja suknja, 2011.

Noje u gradu, 2012.

Skupljačica mina, 2014.

Proza:

Bez Arijadne. U zemlji autizma u društvu poezije, roman, 2006.

Prijatelju, ja nisam kao ti. Pismo jednog usamljenog deteta, 2006.

Euphrosyne Manta–Lazarou was born in Cyprus. She studied Greek Literature at the Department of Philosophy at Athens University, and upon completion of her studies, she commenced her teaching career in secondary education in Cyprus.  From 1995 until 2003, she worked in the special area of Education Training Services of the Cyprus Ministry of Education and Culture as the coordinator of special programs for secondary education, as well as for the development of educational material and curriculum.  From 2003 until 2011, she worked at the Phaneromeni Schools in old Nicosia, as coordinator for the programs of Educational Priority Zone.                                  

In 2013, she was awarded with the National Prize for Poetry of the Cyprus Ministry of Education and Culture for her literary work “Noah in the city”, Planodion, 2012.

Literary work

Prose:

Without Ariadne

 In the land of  autism with poetry as a companion

Novel, Publisher Govosti, Athens 2006

My friend, I am not like you

The letter of a lonely child

2006

Poetry:

Weaver Days, Naked Nights, 2002

…to Love or Death we shall go…, 2005

The Inner Dress, Publisher, Aphi 2011

Noah in the City, Publisher, Planodion, 2012

Narkosyllektria, 2014

Furthermore, her poems and other literature have been published in journals, magazines and newspapers. 

Desi se katkad da, kada grad zeva, u isto vreme pada kiša.

Tada stari grad zaudara kao zadah bolesnika ili dah ogladnelog. Probdevši jednu takvu noć, okusih i taj otrov. Prođoh svim sokacima. I rekoh; da je to zato što ne ugledah nijednu ženu kako mete svoj pod i zaliva saksiju. Ili da se otvori neki prozor na kome se pojavi domaćica i istrese čaršave, kakav ćilim ili bar ponjavu. Sretoh samo neku ženu otromboljena mesa koje neprikladno izvire ispod njenog jutarnjeg ogrtača. Videh je u ulici sa barovima i pušionicama hašiša. Savijala je cigaru i ispijala kafu. I dosađivala se kao greh u bezazlenom jutarnjem pogledu. Pored nje, neka mlada devojka je, još uvek u svojoj večernjoj haljini, hranila mačke. Kadar je ukrašavala jedna stoa.

Nekada su stoe bile senovito mesto, kao stablo u prirodi. Sada je senka, ovde gde je nekada postojalo i telo.

Kada grad bdi uz pratilje kazaljke zvezda, ili se desi da je izmaglica, sa automobilskim farovima koji se izgubljeno vrtlože, tada se pomaljaju – kao iz mora kopno – stare kuće, natopljene opijumom nove upotrebe.

Barski leptir koji bdi su poezija i muzika, i taman kada se, primičući se, nečemu ponadaš, sve je, na kraju, samo scenografija. Ljudi sede tamo čitave večeri. Pristiže i neki pevač, započinje u mračnoj prostoriji duša kojom svetlom rečju i kao utehu im objavljuje:

– Imam jedan savršen plan, reče, i pruži

  jednu ruku da uzme jednu čašu,

  kada je možda mogao umesto toga

  da otvori jedan prozor.

A kada bi se odlučio da duvajući rashladi prvo svoju kašu?

Imam savršen plan, reče, a sitni

gestovi koji uslediše

ometoše ga još jedanput. Imam jedan plan.

I sedi opet odsutan.

Neka žena gleda kroz prozor, izvan bara, dvorište stare škole preko puta i bezrazložno u odnosu na trenutak i prilike besedi o kiši:

Pritislo nevreme, govorila je moja majka; posmatrala je znake misleći na kišu koja je dolazila. A ja sam mislila da je moje oči tamo napolju pritiskao mesec. Nezadrživo je vreme i nevreme.

Nevreme je opet na nogama, majko moja! Nemojte me ostavljati samu u šakama njegove srdžbe.

Sede tamo čitave večeri, lutke u izlogu. Tamo gde nalaziš sreću, tamo ćeš naći tugu. Red do neba, krik života i muk smrti zagrljeni se usađuju u mermerne grudi; hipodermično ubrizgano vreme. 

Sede, dakle, svi tamo sa svojim kratkim nogama, skupljenim kratkim rukama, i kada u zoru izađu u šetnju, u glavi im se nadimaju ogromni baloni i nemaju se na šta više osloniti do na beskrajnu samoću svojih snova.

Sve u sebi prati spori ritam kornjače. Nebo, kornjačin oklop, kao da im je usisalo usahle utrobe i mlitavu misao, pada na grad.

Njihovo poricanje im je sumpor u žaru cigarete, a nesrećno im samoubistvo lebdi na nepomičnom orozu.

It just so happens that sometimes when the city yawns, it also rains.

It is then that the city reeks like the mouth of a sick man or the breath of someone famished. Having made it to dawn after a night like that, I thought I’d give this medicine a try: I roamed every alley; and I thought I’d blame it on the fact that I didn’t see a single woman sweeping her doorstep and watering a flower pot. Or a window opening, with a housewife leaning outside to beat the sheets clean, or a carpet, a rug, a patchwork rug even.  I only came across some woman with her sagging flesh spilling indecently over her bathrobe. It was a street of bars and hash houses. She was like a sin caught in the morning’s untainted gaze. Next to her, a young girl with her evening dress still on, was feeding the cats. The tableau was engarlanded   by an arcade.

It used to be that arcades were a place of shade, like trees in the countryside. Now they’ve become the shadow where there had been a body.

When the city stays up, accompanied by the gnomons of the stars, or if it happens to be hazy, with car lights roving like lost, then they emerge- as it from either a sea or land- houses of old, drenched in the opium of modern usage.

It is barfly staying up late, both poetry and music, and just when you approach with hope, you realize at the end that it’s all a set. People sit there all night. A songster comes, he opens a phrase of light to the riddle of the dark room of the souls and has this to tell akin to consolation:

I have a perfect plan, he said, and made to pick up a glass, the moment when instead of that, he should’   ve opened a window.

What if he decided to first cool down his broth by blowing on it?

I have a perfect plan, he said, and the small gestures that followed sidesteppert   him once more. I have a plan. And he goes back to sitting in absentia.

A woman is looking through the window glass, outside, to the schoolyard across the street, and regardless of the moment and condition, she speaks of the rain:

-          The weather is heavy, my mother used to say; she would observe the signs to weigh up the impending rain; and I thought it was my eyes out there, heavy with the moon. Unrestrained they are, both time and weather.

The weather is keeping busy again, mommy! Don’t leave me by myself to the fingers of its wrath.

They sit there all night, mannequins in showcases. Where you find joy, there you shall find sorrow. A tail as high as heaven, the cry of life and the silence of death, hugging one another, they are infused into chests of marble; time is subcutaneously injectable.

And so they all sit there with their small feet, their short hands retracted, and when at dawn they step outside to walk, their heads grow these huge balloons and there’s nowhere they can fit in, other than the vast loneliness of their sleep.

Everything keeps the slow rhythm of the turtle within. The sky, a tortoiseshell, as if having absorbed   their dry entrails and sluggish thought, falls over the city.

Their denial, sulphur on the charred end of their cigarette; and their forlorn suicide, hovering on a still pedal.