At noon on Wednesday, April 2, a dozen writers crossed by bus the mountains that divide the island of La Palma in two when they learned that and the first day of the was canceled. At that same moment, Javier Fernández, responsible for the radio, and the authors (A vampire danger) y (Camuñas) They began to machine. At the height of the island volcano, in front of the impressive black lava mass that still resists the few machines that work in, the authors reached the solution. On Thursday, April 3, it dawned raining on that side of the island, but when the first part of the storm passed, in the student bookstore, by Manuel López (one of the organizers of the festival), Fernández had already set up his radio; In a circle, some of the 25 writers who participate in this fourth edition developed a creative unlocking workshop; And a few children took advantage of the day without classes for the storm to listenFor a fly of nothing).
Another proof of the resilience of this festival, whose first edition was marked by 2021, writer and bookseller (serendipias) in three songs (Madrid), reached an agreement with the town hall of the Llanos to adapt on the island the one organized in the Madrid city. The idea was the same: organize talks in schools and institutes and dedicate the afternoons to activities in public spaces such as the Municipal Library, the Theater of the House of Culture and the Real Cultural Center 21. Everything was prepared and planned, except the fury of nature.
“I remember seeing live how at four hours of the eruption, the Los Campitos school was buried,” says the director of the event. “Those girls and boys could not run out of books,” he recalls that he thought. Immediately, he spoke with his authors and asked them to be signed all the books they had at home, those given by editorials when they publish a work. “I got together with five huge bags,” he continues. Logistics was complicated by overweight and consequent cost that could not assume. “Penguin Random House learned that I was going to travel and they told me that they wanted to send thousands of copies to the island; if I gave them a guarantee that they arrived at destination, they helped me with the flight,” he says. The Madrid booksellers and the publisher financed the trip and the extra kilos of the luggage. But at the time I was going to take the flight, the ash cloud moved to La Palma airport. “The solution was to travel to Tenerife Norte, there I would pick it up in my car and take it to the south of the island to take the ship to the palm,” continues the story Manuel López.
The end, as in almost all the stories that are narrated these days on the island, was happy. The five suitcases arrived. Penguin Random House’s books, too. That day they went to sleep at four in the morning after organizing lots for all schools on the west of the island affected by the eruption. “When they distributed the book boxes to students it was very exciting, but I will never forget that they also remembered us, the teachers and brought us specimens,” says Mónica Viña Salguer, director of the La Laguna Infant and Primary College, one of the centers affected by the lava.
The students of Viña have been “provisionally” for four years, a word of the authorities, in a cultural center of the Plains of Aridane that now resembles a school thanks to the work of the teaching team. They calculate that they have two others to return to their cole in which in October 2021 one of the Lava languages stopped with the bad fortune that only one of the buildings remained standing. Upon arriving there on the enabled roads, one of the few signs of the passage of time and the progress of repairs, what remains is what a few hours earlier had described Viña: “The blue school”, as it was known on the island, destroyed waiting for its reconstruction.
Until that day comes, the first primary class receives (ZAMPAPALABRAS) In one of the barracks now converted into a classroom. “You have to imagine that you have a third eye. Close the other two and tell me that you see this,” he tells them as part of his poetry workshop. “With this eye you can see things that with the other two.” From there the imagination of some children between 6 and 7 years to which poetry begins to sprout. After the activity, three students of sixth grade and a robot made with Lego await the writer. Two girls and a boy between 11 and 12 have scheduled him so that when he passed a sensor the covers of different books identify which are from Fonseca.
On the other hand of the town, at the Nazareth College, another group of authors is distributed by the primary and secondary classrooms. The expectation is total in the lower courses. They lack arms and hands to try to get answers about the characters of, the youngest author of this edition, who published 17 years On the other side of the screen. Something similar happens to (collection Zoila) When he states: “You have to tell me a desire that cannot be achieved.” “Be a siren.” “Play in the NBA.” “Have all super powers.” “Do not go to school.” With this answer, madness is unleashed, until a child shouts: “If there is no school, you can not read the video games. There would be no video games because you have to go to school to be able to create them.” After a second reflection, the idea is imposed that without school could play more. Enough comfort to an imaginary world without consoles.
Already in high school, enthusiasm changes. It costs more to see arms raised trying to strain a question. These kids between 15 and 16 impose with their eyes and silences. , author of The secret of lovemanage to attract your attention when it explains the difficulties of being a writer and what it charges for each specimen (more than one euro). But when those two or three readers are really able to come the social pressure and dare to ask, it is when he tells the stage he dedicated to writing books for others. “That is called a ghost writer, right?” Asks Paola, one of those girls who tries to hide her enthusiasm for reading, but she is not able to achieve it.
During Friday, the writers toured 14 cabbage and institutes of the Llanos and El Paso. The rest of the activities take place until Sunday, April 6 in public institutions. And then there is an unofficial program that occurs in some corner of these villages. That moment, for example, in which two girls of 7 and 8 years, Giuliana and Maya, meet Margarita del Mazo and the face they put seems to have seen Vaiana, the Disney character that one of them has in her shirt, or any other pop star.
