Nobel Prize in Literature winner Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio spoke on Sunday, October 11 to the audience of the Monterrey International Book Fair (FIL Monterrey) without being in Monterrey himself: medical advice cancelled his trip to Mexico, and his lecture was transmitted from France using hologram-effect technology.
The transmission was made possible by a team from the Tecnológico de Monterrey, which organizes the fair, according to the program Proceso published on October 7. The 34th edition brings together more than 700 authors and some 200 exhibitors from October 10 to 18 at Cintermex, with El Colegio Nacional as guest of honor. Le Clézio's ties to Mexico go back a long way: he arrived at age 26 to complete his military service and ended up organizing books and files in the library of the Instituto Francés para América Latina. For readers of Spanish on both sides of the border, the fair is one of the biggest publishing events in northeastern Mexico.
During the lecture En persecución de la realidad he reviewed two books that marked him at age ten, Don Quixote and Lazarillo de Tormes, along with the Mexican authors: Alfonso Reyes and his Visión de Anáhuac, Juan Rulfo with Pedro Páramo and El llano en llamas, and Carlos Fuentes with La región más transparente, according to El Universal. On Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz he held that she "was not only a great Mexican poet, she was also one of the important figures in the world for the liberation of women," and that she asserted "the right of all women to access science and intellectual knowledge." The Nobel laureate also said: "My heart is in Monterrey."
The first day of the fair drew more than 61,000 visitors, El Economista reported, and the program includes nearly 600 activities across 21,000 square meters, 12% more floor space than the previous edition.
El Colegio Nacional, the guest of honor, is bringing more than 800 titles to its stand and closes its program on Sunday, October 18 with a conversation featuring José Ramón Cossío Díaz at the Auditorio Arca Continental. The fair ends that day.
This article was written with the assistance of artificial intelligence from verified sources and reviewed by a human editor before publication.
