Guernica Editions

Leonidas Donskis and Karla Gruodis (Translator)

To entail, scan and embrace more knowledge of what is and what ought to be done in fewer words -- to make a statement as short, concise, terse and pithy as possible while rendering the sights it opens as vast as possible -- is the principal intention of the practitioners of the difficult art of the aphorism. Many writers have tried it, few have succeeded. A successful aphorism, true to its mission, allows a small step to go a long, perhaps an infinitely long, way ... In our liquid-modern times horizons tend to break up or dissolve as soon as they are drawn. It is this unprecedented quality of our condition that Leonidas Donskis attempts to grasp and convey by resurrecting the badly missed and badly needed art of the aphorism, injecting into it a new impetus, a perfect match to the vertiginous pace of our life, and bringing that art up to the gravity and grandiosity of the challenge we confront.

Given the choice to relive some of life's moments, most of us choose those of joy and happiness, even though they are meaningless without those of sadness and loss.

Links

• World Literature Today - Words for Thought
• Interview with Karla Gruodis