23/04/2025 Moments and books
(On International Book Day)
Each person has their own story with books and reading. I’d love to have photos of all the key moments in my relationship with the written word, but all I have is memory, an imprecise and treacherous archive.
There’s my mom, reaching down one of those huge volumes full of photos from The History of the Human Races from the high shelf in the living room; my third-grade teacher, inviting me to explore the school library during recess; my fifth-grade teacher, who placed in my hands the first García Márquez book I ever read; and my high school literature teacher, who opened the doors to her writing workshop for me—a refuge during my teenage years. Then there’s also my first attempts at reading the newspaper, which always ended up (or began) in the literary supplement.
There’s my dad, paying for a subscription to a literary magazine; my friend Beatriz, who stood by me word by word as I published my first book; the librarians who let me check out more books than allowed when I couldn’t afford to buy any; the cool guy at a bookstore (whose name I won’t say) who let me pay for one book and exchange it twice; my uncle, who helped me edit so many scattered stories and told me, “This one could win contests.” And always, there’s Paul, reading to me tirelessly from the very first day.
And in telling this story, I become aware of just how many people helped build this path with me—and how, more than anything else, books have been a story of encounters and relationships.
Maybe that’s why I keep reading: to keep finding myself.