HOW TO TALK ABOUT THE WAR WITH CHILDREN? THE CASE OF A BOOK CREATED BY A FATHER AND A SON

According to the words of George Ivanov, “We wander distracted in the streets / We look at women and sit in cafes.” Also, we feel our own misery, suffer from a sense of unrequited guilt, and try to formulate something. But, having entered a situation in which, instead of language, only language cosplay is observed and there is no sense left, we just have to finish someone else's poem, “But we can't find real words, / And approximate ones we no longer want.”

And right now that's enough for us. But eventually comes someone younger than us, who sincerely asks: “How come? Why is it happening?” What do we do now? The recent episode of Masyania teaches us that it is possible to joke away a rogue tyrant who believes he is an emperor, but how does this interpretation explain everything?

At the same time, comes a Russian translation of a new book, War, created by a father and a son. Poet, playwright and journalist José Jorge Letria (1951) and illustrator Andre Letria (1973).

There is hardly any text in the book:

— The war comes suddenly, like sickness.

— The war does not see, hear, or feel.

— The war always knows where it is feared or expected.

— The war attracts all our fears.

— The war is fueled by hate, anger, and a thirst for power.

— The war gets into peaceful dreams of the innocent.

— The war has many faces, but all of them are cruel.

— The war doesn’t like fairy tales (The most poignant, isn’t it?—KS)

— The war is oppressive and scares us into silence.

— The war is a machine of anger, a factory of pain.

— The war churns out creatures of steel and darkness.

— The war promises glory but leads to ashes.

— The war is a sorrow.

— The war is the queen of ruins.