Hello, how are you? Welcome to this podcast, from the Canary Islands to the world.
Today I'm opening a book that isn't on any bookshelf: the one that is written with each page that transforms us. We travel the world in search of new stories, because reading is crossing borders without a passport. And every story is a cultural compass.
Today I want to tell you about a woman who not only wrote verses, but paid the highest price for them. In the heart of the Polish forests, at the beginning of the 20th century, Bronisława Wajs was born, known to her people as Papusza, which means 'Doll'.
Papusza was no ordinary writer. In a time when the Polish Roma community was mostly illiterate and nomadic, she learned to read in secret, exchanging food for lessons with local villagers. She was self-taught and discovered that her destiny was not only to walk, but to sing of walking.
Her talent was discovered by the Polish poet Jerzy Ficowski, who was captivated by the purity of her lyricism. Her poems spoke of hunger, cold, horse-drawn carts crossing the snow, and the freedom of the river.
But this is where the story takes a bittersweet turn. By publishing her work, Papusza unwittingly broke the code of silence within her community. She was accused of revealing the secrets of the Romani people to the non-Roma and of betraying their ancestral laws. The punishment was devastating: expulsion. Papusza was declared "impure" and banished by her own people, the very ones to whom she had dedicated every verse.
She spent decades in isolation and poverty, immersed in silence and suffering from mental health issues, even disowning her own poetry. However, time proved her right. Today, Papusza is recognized as the mother of modern Romani literature. Her poems are chronicles of a world the Nazis tried to erase during the Porrajmos (the Roma Holocaust), a world she managed to save with paper and ink.
If this literary journey inspired you, recommend it. And if you have a book that changed your life, tell me about it. Until the next episode!
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