Background reading: athletes and writers share their bibliophile achievements | Culture

The great event of the publishing sector and the multitudinous meeting between writers and readers in the Retiro park always has some contact sport and obstacle course. This 2024, with weather alerts altering schedules, is no exception. This weekend, the Madrid Book Fair reaches the halfway point of its 83rd edition, dedicated to the relationship between literature and sport, a few months before the Olympic Games. For this reason, since last May 31, the extensive program of activities in the pavilions installed in the central area of ​​Paseo de Coches has tried to connect physical and reading activity, and to explore the fruitful, although not so obvious, relationship that It has occurred and continues to exist between these two forms of leisure. Books and sports have never been at odds, although it may have seemed that way. The sedentary writer is already a worn-out cliché and those who only burn calories by pressing the keyboard will certainly be fans or followers of some sporting competition that reveals and inspires them. From there have come excellent titles like the ones that four writers recommend. And four athletes talk about books, which, although not related to sports, have especially motivated them. All of them have participated or will participate these days in the events organized at the fair.

Pedro Álvarez de Miranda. Academic of Language, philologist expert in lexicography and lexicology and author of numerous studies of the Spanish 18th century, the professor recommends a reference book. He says that he finds especially valuable the Dictionary of sports terms, by Recaredo Agulló, (Espasa, 2003). “It is very good for a simple reason, and one that implies great merit: each word and each meaning are exemplified with specific quotes extracted from a considerable number of books and newspapers.”

Almudena Cid. The rhythmic gymnastics champion has recently delved into the ins and outs of acting and is the author of the testimony book Walk without toes, in Vergara. His recommendation: “Momo, by Michael Ende, is one of my favorite books, because of the concern that the current way of living provokes in me: the immediacy and rush that sweeps us away and that contrasts with the pause and reflection that we need. This story captures it through wonderful metaphors, even though it was written half a century ago. I like to turn to this book.”

Alberto Edjogo-Owono. The former Spanish-Equatorial Guinean soccer player who played as a forward and was international with the Equatorial Guinea national team, published Indomitable. African football notebooks (Panenka). “I recommend Soccer against the enemy (Contra), by Simon Kuper for being a work that transports the reader to another space and another time to experience first-hand how football intervenes directly in historical moments in multiple corners of the world.

Mariana Enriquez. To the Argentine writer, author of Our part at night and, more recently, from the short story collection A sunny place for gloomy people (both in Anagrama like the rest of his work), it is difficult for him to stick to a single title. The first one he mentions is Open (Duomo), the biography of the tennis player Andre Agassi, written with JR Moehringer. “I love it because he is from an athlete, perhaps one of the greatest tennis players in history, but he hated his sport.” Enriquez mentions Roberto Fontanarrosa, Argentine cartoonist and humorist, whose sports chronicles showed “the absurdity of being a fan, the madness, the suffering that can tire you out.” The same one that she feels these days due to Noval Djokovic’s injury at Roland Garros —“it makes me bitter in a way that I can’t explain”—. And it is his passion for tennis that distances her from classics like David Foster Wallace or Geoff Dyer: “They wrote great texts about Roger Federer, but he is a tennis player that I don’t like, and that praise of perfection seems elitist to me.” ”. The match (Tusquets), by Andrés Burgo, about the final between Argentina and England in the ’86 World Cup; the novel by Jorge Amado, Captains of the sand (Alliance); and From boxing (Alfaguara) by Joyce Carol Oates, are also not missing from her record.

Javier Gomá. The recommendation of the philosopher, director of the Juan March Foundation and author of the Tetralogy of exemplarity (Taurus) leans towards poetry: Olympic (El Gaviero), by Juan Antonio González-Iglesias. “Like Pindar, who with his epinicios sang to the winners in the Panhellenic games, so our González-Iglesias with the current athletes, inspired by the translation of Fray Luis de León, made his first Olympic of Pindar.”

Belén Gopegui. The Madrid writer, author of 14 novels since her debut with The scale of the maps and that this year he published the essay Small fatal wounds (Debate), recommends two titles. “Both by Ignacio Pato. Popular Stand, (Panenka) who is capable of honoring, page by page, his great title. The most recent, It is not a beast to tame (Altamarea), about Rayo Vallecano, because it summons what Merleau-Ponty called the infinite detail, in this case, let’s say, that of those distant verses sung about Vallecas: a thunder without fear, an avalanche, blows of complaints, a port without sea, and a Rayo Vallecano in which it is in a book full of living history.”

Miguel Pardeza. The former soccer player has a reputation for being something like the most read player in the history of national football. Graduate in Philology, and specialist in the work of César González Ruano, he mentions another author: Javier Barreiro. He was a professor, writer, scholar, member of the Academia Porteña del Lunfardo. “I met him about 40 years ago in Zaragoza,” he recalls, “he taught me the world of literary bohemia, tango and some writers who have accompanied me since then such as Díaz Mirón, Dr. Alt, Álvaro Cunqueiro or Sender, whom “It has not yet been valued as it deserves.” Pardeza began reading Barreiro because of his first books, less known as The tango (1989), Teeth in a chest (1988) or Bohemian Crosses (2001). Xordica has in its catalog The disaster of our parties.

Teresa Perales. Paralympic swimming champion and Princess of Asturias Sports Award winner, she is very fond of historical novels.. “Julia Navarro is my favorite writer, without a doubt. She is a true teacher,” says the athlete, who, for her part, has published a book on personal growth: The power of a dream (Connect). Of those from Navarro, he is left with Fire, I am already dead, which introduced him to some stages of the 19th century. “I like how he tells it, as if they were little novels about families from different origins and points of view, whose destinies are intertwined in a masterful way. He reminded me of something that I love to feel: that I am not the one to judge anything or anyone,” says Perales.