Gonzalo Celorio, (Mexico City, 76 years old) was the eleventh child in a family of twelve siblings. His father died and he was raised by his older brother, responsible for bringing him closer to books and instilling in him a passion for words. Today he belongs to the Cuban and Nicaraguan academies of the Language and presides over the Mexican one. His voice is rough and slow, the aftermath of cancer that a few years ago took away one of his favorite activities: teaching. Celorio has been a teacher at the National Autonomous University of Mexico for more than 20 years. Today he takes life more calmly and his library is a good haven.
He knows exactly how many copies make up the two floors of bookshelves that occupy the main space of his house; However, he does not like to share that figure that his guests always ask him when they arrive. In a humorous way, she assures that he has not read them all, the other recurring question. She treasures books like someone who collects priceless items.
Celorio walks his library and is passionate about things that only a book lover can be interested in. He checks the binding, looks at the spines, holds a copy in his hand, drops the weight on a single sheet and celebrates the edge stitching that makes it a resistant copy, continues his journey and shows off the silk covers of the Spanish Classics of the Castro Library. He can spend the entire day browsing the booksellers and somewhere along the way he comes across the complete collection of Lope de Vega in the edition of the Royal Spanish Academy. It is on the second floor where a book is located that keeps another copy inside: the first edition of One hundred years of solitude, by Gabriel García Márquez, signed and dedicated to his friend. On one side you can see a photo of Gabo and Celorio with the treasure in their hands. The image adds value to the specimen among collectors.
Faced with the obligatory question of what it is like to be a book lover in a country where one does not read, Gonzalo Celorio answers clearly: “What has been missing in Mexico is the pleasure of reading, reading for joy, for enjoyment; “education is dedicated to literacy, that is different.”
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