In this world self-obsessed with money and profits, in this self-destroying madness of human pursuits, we have nothing, it seems, except the prospect of licking our wounds with no medicine or medicine man in sight. The conjurers of life's tales, the chroniclers of human struggles, the messiahs of our souls are being pushed out by liars, paid hagiographers and palimpsest artists.

Truth has become the greatest casualty of our times despite the advances made in information technology. Nothing seems like what it actually is. The mask has become the man.

At least Grass had the fortitude to lift the mask from his sordid past even at the risk of embracing death as an almost nobody. Which brings us to The Nobodies, a poem by Galeano in his The Book of Embraces, which says "Nobodies ... Who don't create art, but handicrafts. Who don't have culture, but folklore. Who are not human beings, but human resources. Who do not have faces, but arms. Who do not have names, but numbers. Who do not appear in the history of the world, but in the crime reports of the local paper. The nobodies, who are not worth the bullet that kills them."

Let's raise a toast to the nobodies.

The author is a senior copy editor with China Daily. oprana@hotmail.com

(China Daily 04/18/2015 page5)