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“It is necessary to take the books out into the street.” This is how forceful the author Juan Eslava Galán has shown himself, the town crier of the ‘Cuenca Lee’ Book Fair 2022, who has made an enjoyable tour of the development of reading in Spain since the Middle Ages, a time in which he is a specialist, to the present. A proclamation that has caused smiles among the attendees in many of his moments.
The well-known writer, winner of the Planeta Prize in 1987, has been in charge of kicking off the current edition of the Book Fair, organized by the Cuenca City Council, the Provincial Council and the Community Board with the collaboration of the Association of Booksellers and Stationers of Cuenca. A proclamation that has been presented by the journalist Helena Lázaro and that has begun with a minute of silence for the sexist murder that happened this morning in Tarancón.
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The event was attended by the mayor of Cuenca, Darío Dolz; the president of the Provincial Council, Álvaro Martínez Chana; the delegate of the Community Board in Cuenca, María Ángeles Martínez; the sub-delegate of the Government in Cuenca, Mari Luz Fernández; the Councilor for Culture, Miguel Ángel Valero; the Provincial Deputy for Culture, Fátima García; and the coordinator of Culture of the regional government, Yolanda Rozalén; among other authorities of different administrations and councilors of the Municipal Corporation.
Once the proclamation was over, all of them toured the twenty stands located in Plaza de España in a day that ended with the signing of copies by the leading author and a performance by the musical group ‘The heart swingers’ .
Juan Eslava Galán began his proclamation with a tour of the mentions made of the city of Cuenca by various authors, especially medieval ones, to recount his experience “thirty-odd years ago”, when he himself came to meet the city to write his novel because “to be exact with the descriptions you have to go to the site”.
A text with which he has valued the work of writing, stating that authors “write lies to tell the truth”. From there he has made an exhaustive tour of how the importance of reading has been changing over time, from the Middle Ages “that could take you to the stake”; passing through the 19th century, when “the pleasure of reading begins to spread”; until today, pointing out that “the love of reading has had a hard time imposing itself, but in the end it has prevailed”. A moment in which the novel competes with the cinema, the internet or social networks that, in his opinion, “can never replace the novel, they are different subjects”.
Despite this, he has expressed concern, reading rates in Spain are very low, “almost at the bottom of Europe”, so “it is necessary to take the books out into the street”.
He has also talked about being an author, pointing out that “it is convenient that the novelist has read and lived”, and denying the classic classifications for books, assuring that there are only two genres: “good novels and bad novels”. Thus, “apart from the classics, which must always be read”, he has said that it is enough “to read the first ten pages” to know if the reader likes a book, because “literature is gigantic and life is short, and not we must read things that we are not liking”.
Thus, Eslava Galán concluded, “we have to love literature, literature broadens our spirit. Since we cannot lengthen life, we can widen it through novels”.
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