A loud and enthusiastic applause broke out, decorated with colorful balloons and regional music in the background, as soon as Mikey Otero and Juan Pablo Villalobos crossed the doors of Lagos de Moreno Regional High School, in Jalisco, 200 kilometers from the capital. A crowd of students waited impatiently behind the school’s principal, Pablo Mauricio Hernandez, peppering the authors’ journey into the main hall with shouts of welcome and looks of astonishment.
The crowd held in their hands small flags of Mexico or Spain, portraits of Otero or Villalobos made in pencil, books they had created themselves with 3D shapes and colored letters, recreating part of their work, and banners of all colors and sizes that imitated phrases the two had said in an interview or in lines from their books. “Thank you so much everyone for being here,” they said at one point, sitting in front of a packed hall. “And especially to the students who welcomed us. We had planned to say thank you for 45 minutes, and that’s just it, so we don’t ruin it.”
Program Echoes of FIL Some guest authors take them into classrooms in public schools around the state so they can talk with students who have previously been immersed in their stories and characters, with the help of their teachers. The choice of Lagos de Moreno, such that these two writers visited it for the first time in all editions, was not random.
Villalobos spent the first fifteen years of his life there, in the family home from which he left on Tuesday, happy, receiving Otero, a friend, collaborator and comrade from the city – Barcelona – where they both lived and also where for five years they coordinated a literary workshop for boys and girls from the El Raval neighborhood.
In an atmosphere resembling that of a concert of a very popular youth band, which produced screams, sighs, laughter and knowing glances, Villalobos and Otero walked a little more than a hundred meters along a fence that seemed endless of young faces that looked at them impatiently and threw themselves in their way to tear selfieOr sign their books, or show their creativity inspired by them.
Details such as an anime-style drawing made by a student showing their characters orchestraBy Otero, if they find themselves in this universe of Japanese fonts. Or canvas with cover If we lived in a normal placeby Villalobos, perfectly outlined and painted in oil.
Both of them, especially Otero, who is visiting Mexico for the first time, look astonished. The welcome and celebratory warmth that Mexicans typically show to foreign visitors is something Villalobos knows well. However, the two are slow to progress, as fast as their fans allow them. “I was very excited to bring him (to Otero). I think I tricked him because the first time I told him Guadalajara was 20 minutes away (from Lagos de Moreno). He arrived last night. jet lag, “So, it’s good that they took it that way,” Villalobos joked, drawing laughter early in the conversation.
Around him, the hall is majestic and fully decorated with objects that refer to the books of Otero and Villalobos. On the left side of the stage, out of sight of both, a ghostly figure circles the corner of the room and, so as not to confuse anyone, has his name written on it: Sabanito. It is a character that Otero created when he was barely six years old, in a series of stories in which this dandy ghost appeared each time in a different color of paper and who was dedicated, he says, to proving himself almost always right.
The agenda, like the civic programs still held in public schools in Mexico every Monday, served as the text of the assembly. Two young men in jacket and tie took charge from the podium, a master of ceremonies who read a brief history of Lagos de Moreno. They gave the floor to director Hernandez and made room for questions and answers, a segment that took nearly another hour of time.
Suddenly, and without many of those present understanding the matter immediately, two rows of young people disguised as indistinct characters headed towards the main stage, interrupting the dialogue between the authors. “It was so beautiful. Now when the zombies are attacking us,” Otero jokes, moments before realizing that each of the costumed students is portraying a character from his book. orchestra.
This rarely happens, as many young people led a party full of creativity, celebration, energy and literature to honor all that books have to offer. The visit is also symbolic and sends a strong message. The city of Lagos de Moreno, located just over three hours’ drive from Guadalajara, has witnessed some of the violence that has shocked the country for several years. In 2023, for example, the kidnapping of five young men who met as usual at a viewpoint in town, and were never heard from again, shook the entire country, which still does not find answers about the case, like many others in Mexico.
Although violence seems to have been excluded from public discussion in that municipality, it still exists like a shadow. But every year, the book fair causes other things to monopolize the classrooms, some cities and, above all, the interest and attention of the younger generations, who allow themselves to dream of meeting the authors of the books they keep in their backpacks.
At the end of the ceremony, the young student who was master of the ceremony asked Villalobos one final question. One that’s different from all the previous ones: “Is your sense of humor a way to lighten difficult topics, or to emphasize them?” “I like to think that focusing on it, because to mitigate it, would be like pretending it doesn’t exist,” the author concludes, to powerful, final applause.