“The Controversy over the Book Fair in Plaza Mayor: Should it Stay or Should it Go?”

Every year around this time the controversy returns about whether or not this festival is appropriate around the books that take over the Plaza Mayor for a few days, turning it into a paradise for those of us who love to read, but a nuisance for others.

There are those who outline the argument that during these next few days tourists cannot fully enjoy the architectural charms of our Plaza Mayor by taking the corresponding photographs and there are those who more interestedly say that the Book Fair should be moved to another place because it harms the business of the terraces that throughout the year have the square occupied but that during these days are relegated.

In response to this dispute, if I had command in the square, I would propose, like Solomon, that time be shared more equally between the two opposing guilds so that neither of them ever feel neglected again. It would then be a matter of decreeing half a year for each one. The months could alternate. If the booksellers occupy it in May, the restaurateurs occupy it in June so that the booksellers return in July and so alternately throughout the year. Some have the same right as others, I think.

Personally, I would love to come closer to the months in which it is the turn of the booksellers to sit quietly on a sofa with a few colleagues, snap my fingers and ask the clerk: Please, are you going to give us a portion of Borges stories for all of us, For so-and-so a couple of chapters of Don Quixote, for Menganita he can use the twenty love poems and a desperate song by Neruda and he’s going to bring me if you don’t mind that unpublished novel they found by Vázquez Montalbán because I’m quite hungry.

It would be fantastic to watch the people spread out all over the square enjoying a good morning reading or reading at sunset, as almost all year long they enjoy a skewer of torreznos and a Pepsi Cola.

Of course, someone could tell me that wealth would be lost in the hospitality sector and jobs, but that would be offset by the wealth that would be created in the culture sector, where many more shop assistants and booksellers would surely have to be hired. . And perhaps we would even enjoy a more cultured, healthier, more informed and even more civilized city. So just in case, here I leave the idea.