Friday, January 7, 2011

The Paris Commune Revisited

A French journalist Amanda Morrow, after reading my essay "The Wall of the Paris Commune" (Divide, 2005), interviewed me on the phone last week.  Her article "Truth buried as Paris cemetery sculpture is mistook for famous wall" appeared on the website of Radio France International's English section today. I learned something new about the history of the Paris Commune through her writing.

As a side note, in the part she quoted me, there is a tiny misunderstanding (this is not a big deal; it's just my writer's fussy nature that drives me to make a correction).  When I visited Paris in 2004, the official map of the Père Lachaise I bought at the cemetery gate did not have two points referencing the Commune. It mentioned only one.  In fact, it was the map seller who told me that Chinese visitors had been seeing two different spots.  

In the interview I also told Morrow that I liked the relief sculpture titled "Victimes des Révoluntions" very much. It is a beautiful sculpture with the beautiful concept that it is devoted to all victims of revolutions, regardless of the side they took.

Victimes des Révolunt (photo by me, 2004)

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