“Delusion is a past illusion presenting itself as hope.” Braschi
“Hope nourishes faith and faith treasures hope.” Chinmoy
“Hope is a passion for the possible.” Kierkegaard
“Lasciate ogni speranza, voi ch’entrate.” Dante
“Senza speme vivemo in desio.“ Dante
Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul. Dickinson
“Verzweifle keiner je, dem in der trübsten Nacht / Der Hoffnung letzte Sterne schwinden.” Schiller
Faith vs Hope Interview
American Book Review
Interventions: Reimagining Storytelling with Giannina Braschi
By Federick Luis Aldama
EXCERPT
How do you find your way to that place of boundless creativity when so much around us insists on thinking only in terms of what is?
When what is doesn’t work, we have to create possibilities that liberate us from the what is that doesn’t work. If what is is horrible. If what is is tragic. Hope is the key. It’s the beginning of we rather than I. I’m looking to “We, the chorus.” It’s about transforming myself through the collective and letting the collective transform us all. Hope is not just an individual feeling. It’s a collective possibility. Hope has wings.
Giannina Braschi, American Book Review
FLA: What’s the difference between hope and faith in your view?
Faith is about grounding, and hope is about flying. Hope looks toward an open future— it’s a liberating force— it’s general— and it’s for all of us. Faith is specific— it has a concrete set of beliefs— it doesn’t have wishes— it has trust. It trusts that its beliefs are true. Faith is about believing, and hope
is about imagining what is possible. Hope offers liberation from everything, including believing. (Giannina Braschi)
FLA: In your work, it’s the poets, philosophers, and lovers who seem to open the door to hope.
GB: Yes, these figures are not bound by systems of economy, which are always about “less is more.” “Less is more” is a fabrication of the rich. What they mean by “less is more” is “less for you and more for me.” But poets, philosophers, lovers celebrate the usefulness of uselessness.
FLA: In today’s world, with the rise of digital platforms, storytelling has become more immediate, more bite- sized, especially for younger audiences. They consume stories through smartphones and social media. How do you see the relationship between modern audiences and works like Putinoika that demand deeper engagement?
GB: There is a crisis of narration, as Byung- Chul Han says. This crisis is based on the lack of thinking. Narration is about continuity. But we’ve become chickens with our heads cut off, as I say in United States of Banana. We think we can liberate the verb from the noun and the predicate. The verb alone is doing, doing, doing— and there is no being. That’s why it’s a culture of alienation and anxiety. It’s focused on fleeting emotions and impermanence— on slivers and shivers. People want something deeper, something more permanent. I write for the future, for what’s to come…
