Bücher von Manuel Rivas

Uno de los problemas tanto teóricos como prácticos de la sociedad actual es alcanzar un constructo de ciudadanía. Para ello se ha convocado a la institución educativa para recrear formas de convivencia integradoras a partir de la diversidad de elementos culturales que convergen en un grupo social, en pro de alcanzar metas comunes. Sin embargo, hay espacios en los que la cotidianidad moldea formas de convivencia que desdibujan la idea de la ciudadana; muestra de ello es la realidad que se vive en los liceos de la ciudad de Los Teques, donde discurso y praxis muestra amplias fisuras. Para dar cuenta de los compromisos onto-epistemológicos que orientan el concepto de ciudadanía, que está construyendo, se formuló un conjunto de proposiciones teóricas desde relaciones pedagógicas alumno-docente-comunidad-Estado, permitiendo la comprensión de las relaciones pedagógicas inherentes al contexto estudiado. Vale la influencia de Cortina en la formulación de la ciudadanía y sus implicaciones; las posibilidades de su comprensión con Foucault y su concepción del poder. La realidad encontró identificación desde Berger y Luckmann.

For Manuel Rivas, words are the most sensitive of creatures. In the same way that frogs or glow-worms are the first to manifest signs of pollution, words suffer as a result of corruption in the socio-political sphere. In his work he is a custodian of all sensitive creatures; his writings document damage and alert us to potential future harm.

In 2003 the Galician writer Manuel Rivas, well known for his novels The Carpenter's Pencil and Books Burn Badly, published in his native Galician language his collected poems, five books of poetry and a selection of recent poems, under the title Do descoñecido ao descoñecido (From Unknown to Unknown). This anthology in English, From Unknown to Unknown, gathers together eighty of those poems and is introduced by the Scottish writer John Burnside, winner of the T. S. Eliot Prize and the Forward Poetry Prize, who writes, 'Again and again, as we listen to the account Rivas gives of the world, we come across the beautiful surprise, the breathtaking renewal of some process or way of seeing we normally take for granted… It is an enormous privilege to have this selection of poems in this attentive and imaginative translation… Here is an essential poet whose work illuminates the world and the condition of those who live it.' This English edition was first published in 2009 and is now reprinted.

Sam is a drug addict with a sense of humour. One particular escapade lands him in hospital, where he makes friends with the old man in the adjoining bed and becomes progressively enamoured of the nurse Miss Cowbutt's unsung qualities. In an attempt to wean him off his drug habit, his elder brother, Nico, takes him to the village, Aita, where their grandmother lives, a world far removed from the distractions of modern life, in which even the silence seems animate. He meets up with Gaby the single mother and Dombodán the collector of discarded items. He also becomes acquainted with a slippery customer named 'Sir' who takes refuge in the radio set in the attic. A host of colourful characters - from Tip and Top to the 'relentless lady' - populate this tale, which pits a victim of zero expectations against the haunting traditions of the village.

Readers outside Spain often do not know that the acclaimed novelist, Manuel Rivas is also a significant poet in his homeland, writing from choice in his native Galician. The Disappearance of Snow is a translation of an entire volume which appeared in Spain in 2009, but which, unusually, had the text in all of the country's official languages.