Taibo is proud of the selection of authors for the free collection: “There was no shortage of including more women”

The Fund for Economic Culture (FCE) will lead the largest mass distribution of free books in Latin America. As of December 17, more than two million titles will be distributed to teenagers across the continent. The goal is to encourage reading among young people. The only precedent for this initiative is one that the Fund also coordinated, organizing the distribution of 21 free titles for 2021. This is even bigger than that. Although it is called 25 paragraphs 25, it actually contains 27 compositions. This is where the controversy took hold. Of the entire collection, only seven books were written by women, or 25%. This is a lower percentage compared to four years ago, when seven authors were also included, but from a list of 21 authors.

Paco Ignacio Taibo, director of the FCE, presented this collection in October at a conference inside the National Palace with President Claudia Sheinbaum. The President tried to put an end to the controversy and stated that a women’s group would be prepared. But since then, many writers have demanded the presence of works in general collections, not just those segregated by gender.

El Pais newspaper requested an interview with the fund manager on several occasions since October, but in the end the case was referred to a press conference. In that meeting with the media, at the FCE stand at FIL Guadalajara, the following dialogue took place between this newspaper and the FCE Director, Paco Ignacio Taipo.

I ask. Do you think now, after putting the collection together, that there was a lack of inclusion of more women?

answer. no.

S. Even taking into account…

R. No, no, no, no. The question is that the answer is no. And I’m telling you in a very simple way: If I told you “Make a pom pom”, what comes to your mind? Vargas Llosa, Cortázar, García Márquez, Onetti, Benedetti. I continue.

S. Elena Jarro, Rosario Castellanos…

R. We published Elena Jarrow in a 21 x 21 set.

S. Yes, also for Amparo Davila and he is back, for example.

R. But perhaps because Amparo Davila never had the exposure she could have achieved as an author in Mexico. But the answer is clear, the pivot was prosperity and a little later, which gave you a group not of men, but a group represented mainly by authors.

S. Sure, but we have authors, for example, like Nonna Fernández, who are not from the boom period. Or Fabrizio Mejia, who is not from the boom and is here.

R. Some of us try, so don’t think that all the colleagues we try are not there. We tried several times and couldn’t. Not necessarily Mexican, but nonetheless, Mexico includes, throughout the collection, five authors: three women and two men.

S. Okay, but it’s a group from Latin America.

R. So, what contribution has Mexico made? Three women and two men. What did Uruguay contribute? Men contributed, so what did Colombia contribute? One and one. The decisions of who wants their arrival were taken by international consensus.

S. In the previous list, it was said that there were 100 books. Was there a larger number of women?

R. I don’t remember. I don’t remember. I know some have disappeared along the way for very strange reasons because the author said at the last minute: “No, no, this is not economically viable.” I will not say his name, of course. In other cases, because we didn’t have a way with the publisher. But, sorry, do you want to create a prosperity group with quotas for males and females? Is this your intention, your interest, your passion as a reader?

S. I’m a journalist and I only ask questions.

R. For this reason, but among the Roma we do not read each other’s hands. You want to create a collection that attacks the great phenomenon of reading loss in the great moment of twentieth-century Latin American literature. Do you want to do it with a fee?

S. In such an important and free collection that also reaches Latin American readers, I ask whether this is an opportunity to recapture the prolific creativity of authors who could have been included. Were there more authors on the previous list then?

R. We have lost authors, and we have lost authors as well. Until the last minute we lost Cortázar, who was essential for me. Creating a bum collection without Cortázar makes my heart hurt. It hurt me so much, but it wasn’t possible until the last minute. I no longer remember what the original menu looked like. It was cumulative.

After meeting with the media, some people familiar with the group explained to El País that about a dozen women were on the previous list of 100 names, but were omitted from the final group, because, for example, their rights could not be obtained. Among them is Maria Luisa Pombal, a Chilean author The veiled womanOr the Argentine poet Alejandra Pizarnik. Even with this number, the inclusion of women does not improve, as it will amount to only 19 women (seven who entered and 12 who did not make it) from the previous full list of 100 writers. On December 17, at 4 pm in the Zocalo in the capital, in the presence of Sheinbaum, the distribution of the collection in Mexico will begin.