In the library of Paco Ignacio Taibo II: Reading defeats ghosts and creates critical citizens

The garage door opens, revealing a small car surrounded by books, in which Paco Ignacio Taibo II (Gijón, 74 years old), a Spanish writer passionate about the history of Mexico, leans.

He is so attracted to her that he not only writes about her, he also holds eternal discussions.

This is attested by

, one of his most popular titles.

As a child, an illness kept him bedridden, and it was there that his love for reading began and his need to keep books close to him.

“Right now in my house you cannot say: where is the library?

Because which of them?

Perhaps that phrase is the one that best describes the site.

The house, located in the Condesa neighborhood, the fashionable neighborhood of the Mexican capital, is literally taken over by thousands of copies.

On the way to the bathroom are the cookbooks;

on the way to the kitchen are the writings on the French revolution;

and in the guest room are those on the history of Mexico.

The writer has no time for rituals, especially since he agreed to direct the Fondo de Cultura Económica, the historic Mexican public publishing house.

"There are days that I wake up and I want to be an editor of the Culture Fund, and there are days that I want to be anything other than the editor of the Culture Fund", he reflects when he talks about the new facet of him leading the project and not as writer.

Taibo II does not stop smoking.

His step is always marked by a cloud of white smoke that accompanies him wherever he goes.

He speaks of the deep admiration for Vargas Llosa as a writer and his contempt for his person.

He is very concerned about young readers: "A part of them have chosen simpler forms of entertainment than that of the book, but they have to be won," he explains.

“A young person cannot have to choose between reading or eating a cake”, which is why he has always maintained that books are too expensive and that their price should decrease.

Finally, he finishes the last cigarette in the pack announcing that he does not intend to die in the next 20 years, nor to move house.

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