Every year between April 23, Spain’s Book Day, and mid-June, when the Madrid Book Fair comes to a close, everyone in our country gets very philosophical about literature, and our conversations bubble over with all sorts of clichés (some accurate, others less so) on the topic: we all talk about how reading makes better, more imaginative people; it broadens our knowledge; it has the capacity to change us and our understanding of those around us; it allows us to live vicarious lives; it makes us more tolerant; and it may even help stop some of us from committing crimes. I fully admit I have made my share of these comments, but I do try to limit myself so as not to contribute to this general overkill of saccharine sweetness. This year, as Don Quixote is trotted out in his endless and exhausting four-hundredth-anniversary dance, politicians in Spain have been extolling the virtues of books and reading as never before. We haven’t given Cervantes a moment of peace this year, so forgive me for repeating one of the most celebrated lines from his novel: “Freedom, Sancho, is one of the most precious gifts that heavens have bestowed upon men… for freedom… men can and should risk their lives; and on the other hand, captivity is the greatest evil that can befall mankind.” I don’t object to the politicians who cite these words, though some of them do sound a bit ludicrous when they do.
A few months ago, I received a letter from a man in captivity, a prisoner whose return address was the Albolote Penitentiary in Granada. It was a very kind letter, and among other things he described the place he lived in as “singular.” As it turned out, one day he had been listening to a classical-music radio show to which I had been invited as a guest host. I had picked out some of my favorite pieces, which we aired, and then I spoke about them for a little while. This prisoner had enjoyed my selections so much that he decided to dash off a letter posthaste:“As I write this, I am listening to the Bernard Herrmann piece you selected,” he wrote, adding that he had read many of my articles and books. I decided to reciprocate by sending him a book, one he probably hadn’t heard of: Cuentos únicos (Singular Stories), an anthology of terror stories by some very arcane British authors, which I had edited. I wrote him a dedication and sent it off.
After a few weeks, the package was returned to me with a stamp that said “Unknown.” I found it rather bizarre that a jail did not know...
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