For someone who likes to go unnoticed, A book firm in the Madrid Book Fair It is the closest thing to an elevator for a claustrophobic. Caged in a booth, Pasto of curiosity for the incessant to come and go of people, aureolate on a sign for more inri (“Today signs books Ricardo Artigas Coarasa”), It is inevitable to feel like an insect nailed with a pin in the cork of the literary vanities. But for a book, as for a child, almost everything is done.
It was not my first time and I had already learned the lesson. The fair is, especially, A cure of humility in an editorial panorama full of geniuses that believe they deserve better luck than the stubborn reality that undresses their sales. Of course, I did not expect to sign, hopefully, Beyond four or five books (One has unlimited confidence in friends, known and greeted). I wanted, without, live the experience: guess what goes through the reader's head that earns your book for a few seconds and, after, Leave it again on the counter; Share concerns; Exercise as a bookcase (one of the trades with which he would have been happy) and, above all, Enjoy a few hours from that corner of Africa In Madrid that is the booth of Black World, surrounded by admirable missionaries and some of the best Africanists in Spain. Quite an honor.
I did not expect to sign, hopefully, Beyond four or five books (One has unlimited confidence in friends, known and greeted)
I will not fool anyone: I did not end with a doll sprain to sign copies of "Journey to the sources of the Blue Nile". And that a journalist partner, In a boost of promotional ingenuity, He encouraged Twitter The bulre that I was going to distribute ham. Not for those. I already say that I had not even been through the imagination.
But, return, I was fortunate to meet people who have left me a mark, people who in the transfer of booths were able to overcome the tails of followers waiting for a dedication of Frank de la Jungla, or a television cook Masterchef, To look up a few minutes to Africa through the black world. As Maria Ferreira, who works with psychiatric patients in Kenya And that he has already debuted in VAP with a moving and brave reflection on the crisis and the NGO. As Carlos Lazaro, a chemical engineer follower Travel to the Past who approached from Valladolid With his family to greet me and tell me that my book was already being read. Like that ethiopian girl to whom I dedicated the first specimen, Maybe the most illusion made me, And I hope it serves to be proud of your wonderful country of origin. Like that marriage that dreams with a better future for the Sahara And look at Africa with passion. Like that man who did not want to sign him (Is there greater demonstration of love to a book than not wanting anyone to scribble some lines in its pages?) And the taste praises him.
Those people were able to overcome Frank's fans of La Jungla or a Masterchef cook to look out a few minutes to Africa
But the fair palpates, especially, In gestures. In those who accept with suspicion a Mundo Negro magazine thinking that, then, You're going to sell them a vacuum cleaner. In the contradiction of those who approach the booth asking what we give and only take a mariapaginas. In the satisfaction of the Africans who visited and verified the overwhelming knowledge about their country of origin of an Africanist of the stature of Gerardo González, with whom I had the pleasure of sharing a few hours. Or in the smiles of the children to whom Angelines He drew his cartoon, With as much mastery as enthusiasm. In passion, ultimately, Of all those whose veins runs the blessed evil of Africa.
Yesterday, José Luis González, Responsible for the Black World booth, He wrote to me to tell me that "Journey to the sources of the Blue Nile" has been the best -selling book of the editorial at the fair. And I'm glad, clear, Although the reward is ephemeral compared to the opportunity to publish with one of the Spanish publishers who with greater rigor and respect approaches the history and reality of Africa.
Thanks to all.
