Edge

I prefer the edge: the place where countries, communities, allegiances, affinities, and roots bump uncomfortably up against one another-where cosmopolitanism is not so much an identity as the normal condition of life. Such places once abounded. Well into the twentieth century there were many cities comprising multiple communities and languages-often mutually antagonistic, occasionally clashing, but somehow coexisting. Sarajevo was one, Alexandria another, Tangiers, Salonica, Odessa, Beirut, and Istanbul all qualified-as did smaller towns like Chernovitz and Uzhhorod. By the standards of American conformism, New York resembles aspects of these lost cosmopolitan cities: that is why I live here.

The Memory Chalet
Tony Judt

Quizá hasta ahora no había leído de un modo tan sucinto y explícito algo que he sentido toda mi vida, ese filo, ese borde próximo, pero existente. Es difícil, y quizá innecesario, explicar ciertas diferencias, máxime cuando hoy "diferencia" sólo suele tener el sentido excluyente y dicotómico, pero leer a Judt ha sido un regalo inesperado, en éste y muchos otros aspectos.