Goya's Child
by Patrick Autréaux
“My grandfather loved birds.
He had an aviary of canaries and exotic nightingales. What he preferred, however, were the birds uncaged. Sat on a stool in the yard, he would scatter seeds to attract them. Turtledoves, bullfinches, tits and blackbirds, which he would protect from cats. Swallows and martins would visit in the orchard, he knew their names and he would teach me them …”
My translation of Patrick Autréaux’s essay ‘Goya’s Child’ is now up at The Dodge. It first appeared in in Libres cahiers pour la psychanalyse in 2012.
Patrick Autréaux is a French writer, living between Paris and Cambridge (USA). The view of illness as an inner experience informs his first cycle of writing, ending with Se survivre (Verdier). He is the author of dozens of books and articles in French. His novels L’Epoux and Avenue des Amériques are published by Gallimard.
His fiction and essays have appeared in Asymptote, TOLKA, 3:AM Magazine, The Kenyon Review and elsewhere.
