The book gave me everything

These days, when the 31st. The Havana International Book Fair brings together readers, authors and other professionals involved in the production and promotion of literature, a name that stands out in the program of presentations and conferences of the cultural event. Bookseller Alvaro Castillo Granada (Colombia, 1969) had little rest during the days of the Cuban event.

“I came as a writer, a bookseller, a striker, a keeper, ready for whatever needs to be done,” he jokes about all the aspects in which he participates in this cultural celebration, which this year has a special meaning for him, since Colombia is a country guest of honor.

Here’s how we found it, wandering around the different spaces of the fair, moderating a panel on Gabriel García Márquez’s links to Cuba, introducing authors of different nationalities who present their work to the Cuban public, and presenting their own texts –Old book (2021) With booksellers in Cuba (2020), including – to the delight of readers.

As they say in popular Cuban slang, Alvaro walks like crazy. But this madness excites him and fills us with joy. The little time he has left between scheduled events is devoted to studying literary offerings on the 31st. FIL and discover treasures or share with colleagues the craft he has been practicing since the age of 19, which has made him great friends in the world of literature, in his country of origin, and also in Cuba.

“Every person has a mission in this world, and mine is to help books spread and reach their readers, whoever they are,” Castillo Granada assures us, sitting in the Plaza de Armas in front of one of the venues for the fiesta del Kuban. a book, an event he knows well because his association with Cuba spans more than two decades.

He loves his job as a lifestyle adventure: “I may not have been to very remote corners of geography, but books have taken me to many places. In Cuba, I’ve been a lot in the central region, in small towns where it is difficult for a foreign bookseller or writer to come, and for them this is a very big event, and they perceive it as a huge gift. Thanks to books, I traveled almost all of Latin America in the footsteps of the writer, his history, the city in which he lived, in order to share later. Literature is a constant adventure.

“I also took the books out of the trash. One day I found the first edition A little prince. Sometimes you walk down the street and realize what a crime some people are committing by throwing books away. If you don’t have them, give them away! Give it to an institution or put it in a drawer in front of the door, because someone will take it anyway … Why throw them away with the leftovers? Old book (Economic Culture Foundation, 2021).

Incomparable satisfaction

Alvaro says that even before he was born, a book was already waiting for him. His father kept him Book of the DesertRudyard Kipling, which was later followed by readings HeartEdmundo de Amicis; Adventures of Tom SawyerMark Twain; Journey to the center of the earthJules Verne and Arabian Nightsworks that shaped the taste and curiosity of those who would become booksellers.

Throughout his professional life, many publications passed through his hands, which allowed him to develop incomparable relationships and satisfaction with other life experiences: “The book gave me everything, from shoes, food, the opportunity to travel and study, even love. Perhaps because I dedicated time to it, it made it impossible for me to share more with my peers, but at the same time, it allowed me to always meet with them. Paradoxical, isn’t it?

Undoubtedly, Alvaro Castillo boasts a long list of friends in the world of literature, inside and outside of Colombia, in Cuba and beyond. “The relationship with the authors was a great success, and I still can’t explain what makes it possible. What rationale is there for an ordinary bookseller to end up fraternally with Gabriel Garcia Márquez, even to the point of giving me a nickname? I don’t know what happened there: friendship, complicity, the fact that I was in the right place at the right time … ”.

Alvaro is known in the trade as Librovejero, simply the name of one of the books he presented at the fair this year under the editorial stamp of the Mexican Fondo de Cultura Económica. This nickname was coined for him by the Nobel Prize in Literature, what Garcia tells in the chronicle, the one I’m selling, another of his latest publication stories.

“I met Gabo through his brother Eligio García Márquez, for whom he worked as a bookseller. Gabriel was looking for certain books that I could get him at the time. I never took a penny from him: nothing was paid for the privilege of buying something and sitting down to talk to him. Although I saw him a couple of times in Colombia, this relationship originated in Cuba.

“Because I supplied him with used books, he once called me ‘an old book’. He thought about it and said that it would be better to call me “libroveiero”, like ropavejeros, people whose profession is to buy and sell second-hand clothes. Since then, Gabo no longer called me by my first name. This nickname became my name for him, and what a great privilege in the life of a person that Garcia Márquez baptizes you with a new name, ”he says proudly and assures that one hundred years of solitude This is the work that he remembers the most.

Other titles in his professional and personal history are inevitable for Alvaro, many of which he treasured at various times in his life. He recently decided to donate his personal library to a Colombian government agency, to which he has already donated 3,018 materials, including books and magazines. mentions I confess I livedPablo Neruda; Time and riversThomas Wolf; auto de feElias Canetti. Don Quixote, Classics And Lord of the Rings.

“I am fascinated by the poems of Fina Garcia Marrus and Retamar. Retamar’s poetry is very important to me, because it seems to me not only that it is very well written and told, but also that his poetry has rhythm, music, and this is what I look for in my prose when I write. And, of course, I have a lot of Colombian authors in development.”

– What, in your opinion, distinguishes Colombian literature?

“It’s a very broad literature with many registers and voices that are always looking for the best way to tell and tell a story, to tell what’s happening to us. It cannot be branded.

“I consider myself part of Colombian literature as a reader and as a book seeker for writers. Besides García Márquez, there are key Colombian authors such as Hernando Telles, Alvaro Mutis, Juan Gabriel Vasquez, Enrique Serrano and Pilar Quintana. I enjoy them as an ordinary reader, but I also had the privilege of being a contemporary of many of those authors who are now famous, and I remember them when they first started. It’s another privilege to see an author grow from his first novel to deeper books, better every time.

“It’s time for a book fair in Cuba dedicated to Colombia. It’s like a way to strengthen the bonds that unite us, to make them more visible, more relevant than they really are. I am absolutely convinced that the book is a tool for change and reflection; a door to the outside world and, above all, a window into others, an opportunity to meet the other and thus shake hands, communicate and communicate.”

Source: Juventud Rebelde

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