There we have it, some, many, few, infinity, but there it is: the book is a physical object, covers, pages, letters, stories, knowledge, something concrete, very concrete. However, to describe it this way would be to miss the truth. What else does it have attached, saved, hidden?
“A book is a dream that you hold in your hands,” he said. Neil Gaiman. JK Rowlingthe author of the saga Harry Potterhas a similar idea: “Something very magical can happen when you read a good book.”
But if you have to cite a writer, only one, that is Borges, and he is Argentine: “Of all man’s instruments, the most amazing is, without a doubt, the book. The others are extensions of his body. The microscope, the telescope, are extensions of his sight; the telephone is an extension of the voice; then we have the plow and the sword, extensions of his arm. But the book is something else: the book is an extension of memory and imagination.”
We talk about that magical object, an amazing instrument, because today, June 15, Book Day is celebrated in Argentina. Many remember another date more, April 23, International Book Day. Here we are talking about a national holiday.
And we say party because that is what it was called since 1924, when the then president Marcelo T. de Alvear declared the date as “Book Festival.”
In its origin there are women. Many, many, all great readers who understood the importance of reading in the social and political life of a country that, let us remember, had not yet celebrated its centenary. It was in 1808, when the prizes of a literary contest organized by the National Council of Women were awarded for the first time, which began an annual celebration.
The presidential decree said that “it is of the greatest educational value to consecrate a special day of the year to the remembrance of the book as an imperishable record of the thought and life of individuals and societies, and as an indestructible link between human generations of all races.” , languages, beliefs, etc.”
Since 1924 it was a Book Festival, and in 1941 the definitive change was decided: Book Day. It was resolved by the Ministry of Education of the Nation. It is a very unique date: two days before, June 13, is Writer’s Day, and June 17, Editor’s Day. It does not seem at all coincidental that the book is between these two great figures, the writer and the editor. Two others are missing, equally important, the bookseller and the reader. The first has its day on April 26 and the second, on August 24.
All these trades, all these jobs, are nothing more than planets that rotate in the firmament of literature. In the center, like a great radiant and warm sun, the book. We celebrate that magical and amazing object today in Argentina. Happy Book Day.
