They celebrate World Book Day with 220 locations in Jalisco

Guadalajara, Jal. With the reading of Deserted Cities, by José Agustín, World Book Day was celebrated this Tuesday in Jalisco in more than 220 venues, most of them in facilities of the University of Guadalajara and under the auspices of the International Book Fair (FIL). of Guadalajara and the Penguin Random House publishing house.

“Susana was walking through Insurgentes when she met Gustavo Sainz, who asked her if she wanted to go to a writers’ program in the United States. Susana didn’t even think about it; She said yes instantly. “Sainz was in a hurry and asked him to write down a telephone number,” read the rector of the UdeG, Ricardo Villanueva, on the rectory esplanade, beginning the reading marathon of the novel.

He was followed by Marisol Schulz, director of the FIL, and after her hundreds of other people, around 450, until the end of the marathon that took place from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. not only on the esplanade, but in all the university centers of the UdeG, including the almost 150 high schools, modules and extensions that the public university has in almost all of the 125 municipalities of the state.

According to the tradition of Saint Jordi, which inspired the celebration of World Book Day, in addition to the novel, each person who read a fragment of the work also received a red rose.

World Book Day was established in 1995 by agreement of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).

Since 2002, the FIL has celebrated the occasion with a public reading aloud, in a celebration that has grown to bring together, in more than 220 locations in various municipalities of Jalisco and other states of the republic, the voices of tens of thousands of enthusiastic readers.

The FIL proposes several works each year that are put to a public vote to see which one will be the winner and will be read in the marathon.

Works by Juan Jose Arreola (2002, 2011 and 2018), Julius Cortazar (2003), Pablo Neruda (2004), Julius Verne (2005), Jorge Luis Borges (2006), Gabriel Garcia Marquez (2007), and Augustin Yanez have been read (2008), Horace Surgery (2009), Jorge Ibarguengoitia (2010).

Also by Bram Stoker (2012), Jane Austen (2013), José Emilio Pacheco (2014), Lewis Carroll (2015), Mary Shelley (2016), Ignacio Padilla (2017), Fernando del Paso (2019), Ray Bradbury (2020 ), Augusto Monterroso (2021), José Saramago (2022) and Elena Garro (2023).

This year it was decided to remember the recently deceased José Agustín, and two of his most representative works were put to the vote, The Tomb and Deserted Cities, the latter winning the privilege of being read.