IGOR POMERANZEV
67
and were, therefore, very difficult to obtain. Anyone of them would
have cost a quarter of my monthly salary on the black market.
However, in my homeland, I did not have the fortune even to see
them. I asked the attendant if! could buy the books there at the fair.
She suggested that I order them at a special bookstore in Dusseldorf.
She even amiably dictated the address. I wrote it down. I have
ordered these books in Dusseldorf and sent them to my friends in
Kiev and Chernivtsi.
Contrary to all the laws of poetry, contrary to my own literary
passions and tastes, I took my pen in hand with a didactic purpose. I
took my pen in hand to remind people that the right to read has
withstood centuries of time. Europe has withstood this right despite
a multitude of invasions and inquisitions. A writer always writes
with the hope that at least someone will read him. I also expect that
my own lines will be read. And if you happen to read them, dear
reader in Paris, or in Hamburg, or New York, then please be so
kind as to stop and think for a moment that while you were reading
this, there was someone in an isolation cell of the KGB in Kiev,
Dresden, or Sophia, or perhaps in a hotel in Odessa, Brno, or
Bucharest, fighting on his own or on her own for the right to
read - for your right to read as well. If! will ever be so fortunate that
even you will read me, readers of Kiev, Moscow, or Chernivtsi, then
remember that I will never forget you, that I will always fight for
your, as well as our, extraordinary right-the right to read.
