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Quote by Derek Landy

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Skulduggery Pleasant

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Author

Derek Landy
Derek Landy

Derek Landy (born October 23, 1974) is an Irish author and screenwriter, best known for his young adult fantasy series Skulduggery Pleasant. Since the first book was published in 2007, the series has sold millions of copies worldwide and been translated into numerous languages. Landy's works are characterized by humor, action, and supernatural elements, appealing to young readers. He was born in Dublin, Ireland, and initially worked as a screenwriter before transitioning to novel writing. In addition to the Skulduggery Pleasant series, he has created other works such as The Demon Road trilogy. Landy's writing style blends dark humor with adventurous plots, making him a significant figure in children's literature. more

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“La gente no sabe lo duro que es tener miedo al hombre con quien vives. Es lo peor de todo. Entras en tu casa como si entrases en la guarida de un lobo y respiras si él no está. Y cuando viene, rezas para que no haya bebido, no haya perdido en el juego y venga tranquilo. No sabes qué hacer ni adónde ir, el miedo te paraliza el cuerpo y la mente. Solo eres miedo.”

“Esa presión que existía: sonreír; sentarse derecha; no decir groserías; comer con la debida etiqueta; vestirse a la moda; no subir de peso; cuidar de las uñas; el maquillaje perfecto; no tomar demasiado; no hablar en público de sexo; no contradecir al otro; cabello sin friz; aliento al despertar con olor a prado primaveral y con sabores de eucalipto y brisa fresca; oler bien, incluida la zona vaginal: hermosa y mítica como sirena, pero sin olor a pescado y sin vellos, por favor. Y así la lista tan larga como ancha, cambiante como cambian los tiempos, las modas, las industrias, el comercio, el marketing. Y ahí iba yo, cumpliendo estos lineamientos sin preguntarme si quería, si me sentía feliz, si era lo que de verdad me gustaba.”

“From the start the proportion of asocials in the camp was about one-third of the total population, and throughout the first years prostitutes, homeless and ‘work-shy’ women continued to pour in through the gates. Overcrowding in the asocial blocks increased fast, order collapsed, and then followed squalor and disease. Although we learn a lot about what the political prisoners thought of the asocials, we learn nothing of what the asocials thought of them. Unlike the political women, they left no memoirs. Speaking out after the war would mean revealing the reason for imprisonment in the first place, and incurring more shame. Had compensation been available they might have seen a reason to come forward, but none was offered. The German associations set up after the war to help camp survivors were dominated by political prisoners. And whether they were based in the communist East or in the West, these bodies saw no reason to help ‘asocial’ survivors. Such prisoners had not been arrested as ‘fighters’ against the fascists, so whatever their suffering none of them qualified for financial or any other kind of help. Nor were the Western Allies interested in their fate. Although thousands of asocials died at Ravensbrück, not a single black- or green-triangle survivor was called upon to give evidence for the Hamburg War Crimes trials, or at any later trials. As a result these women simply disappeared: the red-light districts they came from had been flattened by Allied bombs, so nobody knew where they went. For many decades, Holocaust researchers also considered the asocials’ stories irrelevant; they barely rate mention in camp histories. Finding survivors amongst this group was doubly hard because they formed no associations, nor veterans’ groups. Today, door-knocking down the Düsseldorf Bahndamm, one of the few pre-war red-light districts not destroyed, brings only angry shouts of ‘Get off my patch'.”

“How many rapes occurred inside the walls of the main camp of Ravensbrück is hard to put a figure to: so many of the victims—already, as Ilse Heinrich said, half dead—did not survive long enough after the war to talk about it. While many older Soviet women were reluctant to talk of the rape, younger survivors feel less restraint today. Nadia Vasilyeva was one of the Red Army nurses who were cornered by the Germans on the cliffs of the Crimea. Three years later in Neustrelitz, northwest of Ravensbrück, she and scores of other Red Army women were cornered again, this time by their own Soviet liberators intent on mass rape. Other women make no excuses for the Soviet rapists. ‘They were demanding payment for liberation,’ said Ilena Barsukova. ‘The Germans never raped the prisoners because we were Russian swine, but our own soldiers raped us. We were disgusted that they behaved like this. Stalin had said that no soldiers should be taken prisoner, so they felt they could treat us like dirt.’ Like the Russians, Polish survivors were also reluctant for many years to talk of Red Army rape. ‘We were terrified by our Russian liberators,’ said Krystyna Zając. ‘But we could not talk about it later because of the communists who had by then taken over in Poland.’ Nevertheless, Poles, Yugoslavs, Czechs and French survivors all left accounts of being raped as soon as they reached the Soviet lines. They talked of being ‘hunted down’, ‘captured’ or ‘cornered’ and then raped. In her memoirs Wanda Wojtasik, one of the rabbits, says it was impossible to encounter a single Russian without being raped. As she, Krysia and their Lublin friends tried to head east towards their home, they were attacked at every turn. Sometimes the approach would begin with romantic overtures from ‘handsome men’, but these approaches soon degenerated into harassment and then rape. Wanda did not say she was raped herself, but describes episodes where soldiers pounced on friends, or attacked them in houses where they sheltered, or dragged women off behind trees, who then reappeared sobbing and screaming. ‘After a while we never accepted lifts and didn’t dare go near any villages, and when we slept someone always stood watch.”