Fallen Angels

Robin Lloyd-Jones

Description

From the outside most of us have caught brief but shocking glimpses of the street children of South America. In this collection of short stories Robin Lloyd-Jones shows us, vividly and authentically, the view from the inside looking out. We feel what it is like to be only ten years old and yet to prefer life on the street to the miseries of violence, abuse and poverty in the home.Exploited by the police, the drug pushers, the makers of 'snuff movies' and the dealers in human spare parts, tidied away when they might be a political embarrassment, these children have learnt to survive, like the stray dogs on the garbage dump, by obeying the law of the pack.'Reality is a dangerous substance,' says a character as he offers a joint to ten-year-old Angel. 'It should be taken only in small doses by the young.' What Robin Lloyd-Jones offers us is undoubtedly a very strong and disturbing dose of reality, one which cannot fail to touch the humanity of his readers.What reviewers thought of the book:This is an extremely interesting collection of horrifying stories about Los Gamines, the destitute and homeless children who roam and sleep in the streets of a great South American city ... The stories in Fallen Angels are terse and economical and well-written. A lot of would-be short story writers could study them to their advantage. (Fred Urquhart, Scottish Book Collector).The importance and horror of these stories transcend art; quite simply, they question whether humanity has any right to enjoy this planet at all, if the price for that enjoyment is the staggering amount of human suffering and death Lloyd-Jones describes .... His commitment and empathy shows.... The stories are well-paced, well-patterned, too: cutting from child view to adult, from character to character, yet interweaving a black tapestry.(Douglas Gifford, Scottish Books)."If you want to know what poverty and injustice are really like only fiction can give you the truth," says Robin Lloyd-Jones. In Fallen Angels he proves this with unsurpassed mastery.... A compassionate, deeply moving rendition of some disturbing tales based upon reality. (Dr Maryanne Traylen, Resurgence Magazine).

Informations

• Publié par: eBookPartnership.com
• Date de parution: 30 août 2012
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781909270145
• Langue: English

Extrait

FALLEN ANGELS
Stories of Los Gamines Robin Lloyd-Jones
Copyright © Robin Lloyd-Jones 1992.
About the book
From the outside most of us have caught brief but shocking glimpses of the street children of South America. In this collection of short stories Robin Lloyd-Jones shows us, vividly and authentically, the view from the inside looking out. We feel what it is like to be only ten years old and yet to prefer life on the street to the miseries of violence, abuse and poverty in the home.
Exploited by the police, the drug pushers, the makers of ‘snuff movies’ and the dealers in human spare parts, tidied away when they might be a political embarrassment, these children have learnt to survive, like the stray dogs on the garbage dump, by obeying the law of the pack. ‘Reality is a dangerous substance,’ says a character as he offers a joint to ten-year-old Angel. ‘It should be taken only in small doses by the young.’ What Robin Lloyd-Jones offers us is undoubtedly a very strong and disturbing dose of reality, one which cannot fail to touch the humanity of his readers.
About the author
Robin Lloyd-Jones is an award-winning author who lives on the west coast of Scotland. After obtaining a degree in social anthropology at Cambridge University, he became a teacher and then an adviser in education. In addition to writing, his interests are mountaineering, sea kayaking, chess and travel.
Most of the research for Fallen Angels was done in Bogota, Colombia, where Robin established close contact with a gang of street-kids and spent much of his time in back streets where the police dared not go. His experiences in India, in Central and South America and in Tanzania have given him a deep awareness of the worldwide abuse of human rights. He has written about this in The Guardian, The Times and elsewhere. Robin strongly believes that freedom of expression is essential for a just and fair society. Through Scottish PEN International, of which he is a former president, he is an active campaigner on behalf of persecuted writers. Following the publication of Fallen Angels , Robin was awarded an Honorary Fellowship at the University of Glasgow’s Institute of Latin American Studies. www.robinlloyd-jones.com
Some reviews of Fallen Angels
This is an extremely interesting collection of horrifying stories about Los Gamines , the destitute and homeless children who roam and sleep in the streets of a great South American city ... The stories in Fallen Angels are terse and economical and well-written. A lot of would-be short story writers could study them to their advantage. (Fred Urquhart, Scottish Book Collector ).
The importance and horror of these stories transcend art; quite simply, they question whether humanity has any right to enjoy this planet at all, if the price for that enjoyment is the staggering amount of human suffering and death Lloyd-Jones describes .... His commitment and empathy shows.... The stories are well-paced, well-patterned, too: cutting from child view to adult, from character to character, yet interweaving a black tapestry.(Douglas Gifford, Scottish Books ).
‘If you want to know what poverty and injustice are really like only fiction can give you the truth,’ says Robin Lloyd-Jones. In Fallen Angels he proves this with unsurpassed mastery.... A compassionate, deeply moving rendition of some disturbing tales based upon reality. (Dr Maryanne Traylen, Resurgence Magazine ).
Other books by Robin Lloyd-Jones
Argonauts of the Western Isles (Whittles Publishing, 2008) - non-fiction. The author’s sea kayaking adventures on the west coast of Scotland.
Red Fox Running (Andersen Press, 2007) – a novel for 12+, set in the Arctic, looking at environmental issues. Short-listed for Heart of Hawick Children’s Book Award; long-list for Manchester Children’s Book Award.
Fallen Pieces of the Moon (Whittles Publishing, 2006) – an account of a kayak trip in Greenland.
The Dreamhouse (Hutchinson, 1985) – a novel. A surrealist satire set in a remote 19 th century gold-rush town in Alaska. The arrival of a con-man turns the community upside down. A Booker Prize entry. 'Fantastic, funny and inventive, a tonic to read.' (The Guardian).
Lord of the Dance (Gollancz and Arena,1983) – a novel. A 16 th century English doctor on a quest to find a cure for leprosy in the India of Mogul Emperor, Akbar. Winner of BBC Bookshelf First Novel Award and a Booker Prize entry. ‘A significant literary discovery' (The Glasgow Herald); 'Astonishing imaginative brilliance' (The Times).
Where the Forest and Garden Meet (Kestrel, 1980) – children’s fiction (9-12). Short stories based on the author’s memories of a childhood in India.
The Sunlit Summit , a biography of W H Murray, the Scottish mountaineer, writer and conservationist will be published by Sandstone Press in 2013.
Foreword
Angel, Angelina, Nelsón and the other people in this book are fictitious characters and the city in which they live is a fictitious city. However, everything that happens to Angel and his companions has happened, is happening and will continue to happen, in one form or another, to real street children. These tragedies are well documented in a number of reports by unicef and by the Anti-Slavery Society. Many of the things described I saw for myself in Bogota where I spent time getting to know the street kids. In my stories, however, I have not named the city in which they live because I do not wish to convey the impression that this problem is confined to one particular city or country. Street children are a worldwide phenomenon. Nobody knows for sure how many such children there are. unicef estimates that there are at least 100 million children whose lives are similar to Angel’s. In the years since I wrote this book enlightened policies and positive action have improved the situation of vulnerable children in Bogota. Worldwide, however, the number increases daily.
Many people in South America helped to make this book possible. In particular, I would like to thank the brothers Nelsón and Louis, aged ten and eight, for allowing me a glimpse of life on the streets they have since disappeared and their whereabouts is no longer known; the real Angel (who taught himself to read and escaped from the streets to become a social worker), in whose company I safely walked the forbidden quarters in the forbidden hours; Rosario Saavedra of cinep for many invaluable contacts; Javier de Nicolo of the Bosconia-La Florida recovery programme; Father Francisco de Roux (now in exile) for opening my eyes to the misery of the barrios; and Marta Forero of the University of the Andes for much excellent research, advice and practical help. Finally, to the Scottish Arts Council, who gave me a travel and research grant, I record my gratitude.
Contents
Blood of the Saviour
Happy Days
Open Veins
The Miracle Play
Just Pretend
Strays
Snow White
Only in Small Doses
Maggots
Even the Birds
Superman
Simple Economics
Independence Day
The Gamin Look
Relative Values
Fancy Wrapping
Appointment with Death
His Eminence
They Can’t Take This Away
The Knock on the Door
A Perfect Day
On Angels’ Wings
The Blood of the Saviour
The glowing orange halo slipped behind the pinnacle on which stood the Saviour of the World, an immense concrete figure, arms outstretched, blessing the city below it. Claudia sat on the crumbling sidewalk trying to sell the last of her bananas. Sometimes business picked up a little after sundown. Not until then had the poor of the city accumulated enough to buy their evening meal. Claudia thought about her two children, Angel and Angelina, waiting in their one-room shack in the barrio. Her evening sales would be the difference between whether she could give them rice and beans or only coffee thickened with flour.
Times had not always been so hard. She could remember the days when she had been able to purchase a basketful of bananas straight from the lorries that came in from the countryside and sell them door to door in the wealthier suburbs of the city the kind of places where the cats had tails where people were so rich that they’d buy a whole bunch. But it only takes a couple of bad days, a brief illness, a pressing debt and you haven’t got the money to buy your stock for the day. So Claudia had been reduced to buying smaller quantities of bruised bananas, hawking them in a poorer part of the city. Now she had slid even further down the scale, selling small pieces, already peeled, cut from mouldy and blackened fruit, the unsold stock of those higher up the ladder. She sat in the backstreet gutters amongst other vendors whose prices rarely exceeded half a peso, who sold cigarettes singly, matches split in two and tied in half-dozen bundles, broken biscuits by the half-cup and used coffee-grounds in twists of newspaper. Last night her man, César, had taken yesterday’s small profit from her purse and spent it getting drunk. Without sufficient capital to buy today’s stock, she had lifted her plaster statue of The Holy Lamb of God off the shelf above the bed and taken it to the pawn shop on the corner of Calle Octavia and Carrera Tercera.
By half-past ten she knew it was hopeless. Nobody was buying her blackened, almost liquid offerings, now encrusted with the day’s grime. Rather than take home what was left she would throw it away that was how hopeless it was. How was she going to buy food for her children, regain possession of her precious statue and still have enough for tomorrow’s stock? She would sell her blood. She’d done it before. She knew all about those clinics where a healthy profit was made from the trade in blood by asking few questions of those who sold it to them and seldom adhering to regulations about the maximum amount you were supposed to give at one time. She walked the block and a half to the clinic, knowing it would be open at this hour. This was a peak time for them. On the wall of a building someone had spraye