LAS LENGUAS INGLESA Y ESPAÑOLA de Delfín Carbonell

 I met Silvano Corrêa at Duquesne University, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, when we were both undergraduates in the late 1950s. Born in Brazil and now living in São Paulo , Silvano has been my friend for almost seventy years. I have always regarded him as an honest, upright, optimistic, idealistic, and God-fearing man. I have had a few disappointments in friendship over the years, but with Silvano, I have always felt safe. Some time ago, he sent me, in book form, a collection of letters he had written to Brazilian newspapers, decrying the state of affairs in his country and in the world at large. Minhas Cartas, expressões de um idealista is a compilation of his views on government, politics, and society in general. Silvano has now published his memoirs, Seven Lives of Silvano: one story, seven ways, just one purpose (Amazon Books, 2026), in which he recounts his different stays in Brazil and the United States. This is, to my mind, a fine memoir of a bilingual and bicultural man and ...

  BILINGUAL BICULTURAL   In the early fifties, as a young boy, I crossed the Atlantic aboard a TWA Super Constellation propeller airplane from Madrid. After many hours, we landed at Idlewild Airport in New York. A tallish, thin, blond young boy reached America and immediately felt at home. “This is home at last”, I said to myself, and thus started my love affair with this country. What was it about Idlewild, the Greyhound bus that took me to Pittsburgh, a nine-hour ride, the people around me… It was a feeling of contentedness, of a certain joy, of adventure and emotion. All seemed new, fresh, and different, so different from my adopted city of Madrid, where I have never truly felt at home to this day. I had my first Coke, my second Coke, my third Coke during that long trip through Pennsylvania to Pittsburgh, the Smokey City, as it was then called. I was better off than most because I spoke English and was able to understand and make myself understood to the astonishmen...

Desde que mi padre entrevistó a don Ramón Menéndez Pidal para la revista Estudios , de la Duquesne University de Pittsburgh —de la cual él era corresponsal en España—, tuve la intención de leer su La España del Cid (1929). Años más tarde conocí yo mismo a don Ramón, a quien entrevisté en su casa de Chamartín. Hoy he logrado descargar en PDF la obra completa, que pretendo leer en los próximos días para deleitarme con la historia medieval de España narrada por tan gran experto. Don Ramón desmonta la teoría de Rainiero Dozy , según la cual Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar, el Cid Campeador , habría sido una suerte de guerrillero al servicio del mejor postor. El Cid, en cambio, fue un verdadero caudillo patriota y muy de carne y hueso. Nunca es tarde si la dicha es buena, y mañana comienzo la lectura de los dos volúmenes. Gran ayuda nos depara la tecnología moderna. 

  My first encounter with a real Library was at Duquesne University . In Madrid, I was too young to have access to the Biblioteca Nacional and older friends borrowed books for me to read, like Nietzsche's Aurora ( Dawn ), I recall. So, entering the Library at Duquesne University was a discovery, a deep satisfaction to see so many books on their shelves, at my fingertips. To this day, in a Library -now I visit the Biblioteca Nacional as a researcher-, I feel at home, at peace. I secured a part-time job at Duquesne University Library , (50 cents an hour) granted to me by the Librarian , Mrs. McCann . At odd times, between classes, I would log in for some hours there, cataloging books, microfilming the LC Cards from the Catalog Files, and having first access to all the incoming books to be cataloged and classified. Being a member of the staff, I could borrow all the copies I wanted, and even have access to the titles in the Index Expurgatorius , where Sartre was included then. Wha...