And of Clay Are We CreatedEssay Preview: And of Clay Are We CreatedReport this essayUnlike many novelists, Isabel Allende did not train as a fiction writer by creating short stories before moving on to novels. Her first three works of fiction were novels, and she did not turn to the short story form until readers of Eva Luna asked to see the stories the title character refers to. ÐŽ®ÐŽ®And of Clay Are We CreatedЎЇЎЇ was written specifically for the 1989 collection The Stories of Eva Luna.
The story is about a young girl who is trapped in a mudslide, and a reporter, Rolf CarlЦ, who is sent in his television helicopter to cover her rescue. Unable to maintain his reporterЎЇs objectivity, he joins in the unsuccessful rescue attempt, and then stays with the girl until she dies. As he talks with the girl over a period of days, CarlЦ remembers and begins to address his own youthful suffering, which he has repressed for many years. At a further remove, the girl and the reporter are being watched on television by the narrator, CarlЦЎЇs lover, who experiences the pain of both.
Allende has often spoken about ÐŽ®ÐŽ®And of Clay Are We CreatedЎЇЎЇ and its importance to her. The characters of the television reporter and his lover are both based on AllendeЎЇs own experiences in journalism. In an interview with Marilyn Berlin Snell, she explains that the plot of the story is also based on fact: ÐŽ®ÐŽ®This story really occurred. In 1985, we saw her on every television screen in the world, the face of Omaira SÐÑžnchez, one of the thousands of victims of ColombiaЎЇs Nevado Ruiz volcanic eruption. The black eyes of that girl have haunted me. . . . She is telling me something. She is talking to me about patience, about endurance, about courage.ЎЇЎЇ Reviewers of The Stories of Eva Luna have praised AllendeЎЇs ability to adapt historical events into fiction, as she does in ÐŽ®ÐŽ®And of Clay Are We Created.ЎЇЎЇ
The Story of Anón E. Gonzales
http://www.thevillagevoice.ca/blog/anonym-gonzales-the-story-of-anón-es-gonzales
This story was written to help journalists gather information on various issues of La Lourdes and the local community. It is based on her experiences in La Palais de la Compound, an organization dedicated to improving local culture, that gave access to a comprehensive database of La Lourdes to journalists through a digital portal which will offer a wider look at news organizations and the news that can be reached through social media. In addition, Anón E. Gonzales created the website to facilitate access to the same information that a journalist or reporter would receive. It is an open source project aimed in support of the mission of The GEO group to disseminate the news sources and information available to the GEO community in order to contribute knowledge, tools, technology, and information directly to a larger community. For information on other relevant information, e-mail The Village Voice at [email protected].
