Words that confront each other at the Monterrey International Book Fair

MONTERREY.

“The word calls us to a book fair; not only the one that is similar to us, but, even more so, we need to listen to those that are distant from us,” commented yesterday Carmen Junco de la Vega, president of the Monterrey International Book Fair.

“The words of other languages, of other cultures, of forms of thought different from ours, which confront us and, therefore, enrich us,” he stated during the inauguration of the 31st edition of the most important editorial meeting in the world. North of the country.

“Year after year, more than 275 thousand readers, editors and authors meet at this fairground to dialogue, think about each other, read each other, read each other; that other that, through words, confronts us with the different ways of inhabiting the world,” he added before a presidium made up of 13 academics and cultural promoters.

“This fair project is the perfect example of the spirit of Nuevo León, in which academia, government and civil society… come together to discuss possible futures, desirable futures and that future that only together we can design,” Junco added. De La Vega.

In one of the restored Cintermex auditoriums, Santos Guzmán López, rector of the Autonomous University of Nuevo León, guest of honor celebrating 90 years of life, pointed out that “we are a society avid for reading and knowledge. For this reason, we declare that culture and literature are fundamental values ​​in the education of our country.”

This is how the FIL of Monterrey began, directed by the promoter Henoc of Santiago, which brings together 190 exhibitors and 450 authors in around 600 activities in the royal capital from today until October 15.

In his opening speech, José Javier Villarreal highlighted the royal capital where this book meeting takes place. “It is an industrial and commercial city; It is the most important and last urban infrastructure city in the world of the Spanish language; It is surrounded by beautiful mountains that offer us an unusual view of the landscape at every moment.

With an expectation of 300 thousand visitors, including 90 thousand children in the Children's Pavilion, which celebrates its second edition, the fair exhibits the exhibition Gabriel Zaid is not herecurated by Arturo Saucedo, which brings together 105 books by the royal poet, essayist and critic, to whom a tribute is paid for his 90 years of life, which he will celebrate on January 24.

The exhibition shows first editions of Zaid titles, published from 1963 to date, magazines and newspapers with
articles and notes dedicated to his work; in addition to videos of interviews made with specialists in his life and thoughts.

“The complicated thing about the tribute is that Zaid will not be present, because he does not give interviews and he does not like to appear in public. We are not going to find the character; but we will discover the thinker, the poet, the critic of culture; The important thing for the public is to be in front of his work,” Saucedo said in an interview.

The cultural manager, a collector of Zaid's work, highlighted that the passions of this intellectual are contradictory. “On the one hand, in The too many books a criticism is made of those of us who accumulate the volumes and knowledge of books; and he proposes a way in which you can read and free yourself from books.

“And, on the other hand, from the photos we have and what we have known, we know that it has a very large library, which is a true treasure. His idea of ​​culture, his criticism of culture, and his criticism of the Mexican political system are also his obsessions,” he indicates.

He explains that this exhibition is aimed both at an audience that will encounter Zaid's work for the first time, and at specialists who will be surprised to see his rare editions.

Regarding the themes that Gabriel Zaid addresses in his work, Arturo Saucedo details that “it begins with pre-Hispanic indigenous poetry, goes through colonial poetry, the poetry of independence, the songs of Independence, the songs of the Revolution, popular songs, the boleros, the urban song, the nursery rhymes. It makes a unique record of the poetic phenomenon,” he concludes.

An agora for Zaid

MONTERREY.- “A sociologist of Mexican and Latin American life; a sociologist of culture, of the university, of politics, of power, of the guerrilla, of companies; a sociologist of wealth.”

This is how the historian Enrique Krauze defined “an aspect of Gabriel Zaid that I do not believe has been properly discovered,” during his intervention at the table Gabriel Zaid and the political citywhich took place last night as part of the tribute to the royal poet, who will turn 90 next January.

“I thought, recently reading Max Weber, no less than the father of modern sociology, that what Weber did for the economy and society, in practically all civilizations, is something very similar to what Zaid has done for Mexico, for important aspects of Mexico and Latin America,” he highlighted.

The magazine director Free Letters He recalled that it was in Monterrey where “the miracle” occurred that Alfonso Reyes and Zaid were born, and that here Octavio Paz met Don Gabriel.

“That miracle happened that in the city of Kings Zaid was born and formed, and that here Zaid and Paz met, that here Octavio discovered Gabriel. Three writers, who are not three writers, but three literatures,” he added.

Krauze said that “in this first session the dimension of this man's work has not even been touched upon, of whom you will not find an interview, a personal statement, or a photograph. He is his work. He is a man who has published a work that goes far beyond half a century and who is still active in full creativity.”

And he suggested that Monterrey, his hometown, celebrate Gabriel Zaid with the construction of an agora.

“When we talked to him about a series of conferences or a classroom to celebrate it, he looked unconvinced; but when the word agora appeared, which in the great Greek tradition, which he admires and about which he has also written, evokes truth and culture in conversation, he was glad."

Virginia Bautista, sent