The authors recall in their proclamation their links with reading since childhood and sign in the booth of THE TRUTH
My father was born in Murcia as a result of a war accident and my paternal family spent the war in this city. Murcia for me has always been a reference. I have also had the feeling, in the more than twenty years that I have come to Murcia, to always find myself at home». These were the first words that Lorenzo Silva spoke yesterday afternoon, during the proclamation of the Murcia Book Fair 2022, an event held in the Hall of Degrees of the UMU Law School, on the La Merced campus . Words that were preceded by a mention of Asensio Piqueras, former director of the Book Fair, who died last spring. As Jesús Boluda, director of this event organized by the Palin association, recounted, it was Piqueras who wanted the Planeta award and Nadal Lorenzo Silva award, together with the poet Noemí Trujillo, to kick off. While in previous years they opted for leading authors at the local or regional level, for this occasion it was decided not only to have one relevant town crier at the national level, but two, a fact that will set a precedent: «From now on, during the following years we want to be equal and we will always have a town crier and a town crier”, announced Jesús Boluda at the beginning of the act, where the protagonists were the authors, who would later present their latest book written in four hands, ‘La forja de un rebel’.
During her speech, in which Silva and Trujillo were accompanied by the vice-rector of the UMU, Joaquín Longinos Marín, and the journalist Juan Tomás Frutos, the poet wanted to take the audience back to her childhood, in a small house on the outskirts of Barcelona. Specifically, her story traveled to “the analogical summers of the 80s” in which, “for not wanting to take a nap, I began to read the only two books that were at home.” The first was «’Ten little blacks’, by Agatha Christie and with it I was able to travel to the English coast and put together my own puzzle in a different world». The second was ‘For whom the bell tolls’, a throwback to the Spanish Civil War with the gaze of Hemingway. Two books that led him to set foot in the library for the first time. “It opened up a new world for me and offered me many opportunities that I have since been able to enjoy.”
Noemí Trujillo: “Because I didn’t want to take a nap, I started reading the two books that were at home: ‘Ten Little Negritos’ and ‘For Whom the Bell Tolls'”
Lorenzo Silva ‘blamed’ his passion for reading on the library bus bookseller who stopped by his humble Madrid neighborhood when he was a child. The titles of Kafka, Cortázar or Proust became “windows to places I could not travel” where he found “a group of friends who have never stopped accompanying me, who have not failed me and who have made my life better” . Books for which he decided to write «to try to provoke in others what the readings provoked in me» and with which «I found an enrichment of my personal life that will continue with me until the end of days». This is how Lorenzo Silva concluded a speech with which the Book Fair was inaugurated and which continued with the delivery of the Murcian Book of the Year 2021 award to Ilu Ros, for ‘Federico’.
The book, “a precious object”
The conversations about the rain and the clues that climate change is leaving were protagonists in the huddle prior to the proclamation of the Book Fair. Impossible to be oblivious to the torrent of water that fell minutes before 6:00 p.m., the moment in which the act began. However, the rain gave a break and allowed passers-by to enjoy the first day of the Fair along Paseo Alfonso X el Sabio with the presence of several authors. Among the familiar faces of regional literature, Dionisia García walked among the booths. The poet, who will sign on Monday the 10th at 12:30 pm in the booth of La Rueda de los Libros, enjoyed this space dedicated to paper. “The book is very well displayed and cared for.” Something important “because sometimes the booths are uninhabited and the books cry when they are ignored”, considers the author who advocates for the physical format. “It is a precious object and it must be defended. Many publishers appear here, but more are needed », says García, who likes to « pamper the reader » with « a beautiful book, mine or someone else’s ».
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