Portbou
Highlights
Border Correspondence
Among the Hannah Arendt Papers at the Library of Congress in Washington is a small collection of coloured envelopes once addressed to Walter Benjamin. They were sent to 10 rue Dombasle, Paris. Orange, yellow, pale blue. Today they are empty, but their surfaces are covered in tiny handwriting: corrected sentences, crossings-out, additions. Benjamin had reused
Articles elsewhere
Dani Karavan, “Passatjes,” Portbou, Spain
Dani Karavan’s memorial to the philosopher Walter Benjamin, Passatjes, has been here in Portbou since 1994. Benjamin died here in 1940. Although he had a safe conduct pass that should’ve allowed him to cross Spain and enter Portugal, the police refused him entry. Because he was in poor health, he was allowed to remain in … Continue reading Dani Karavan, “Passatjes,” Portbou, Spain →
• In an attempt to cross borders
An important reason for this trip halfway around the world was for me to stop in the tiny village of Camallera, in northern Catalunya, for a three day meeting connected to a European collaborative project which the NGO I co-founded is involved in. Here, the bakery only opens at 9am, everyone greets each other on …
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