There was a time, not too long ago, when I reread it about six times in a row Don Quixote of La Mancha, simply because I taught it in a Catholic school, that experience left the novel firmly in my memory and I often look at it for the pleasure of randomly opening it and enjoying its lines. From there I take the memory, when friends of Alonso Quijano were looking through his library, for this quick overview of some books that have pleased me in recent days. It is worth acknowledging that the publishing program of Ecuadorian authors, implemented by Editorial Planeta, based in Bogotá, has given us access to valuable national writers who always lack the opportunity to bring their works to light.

I wrote several times about Corner of the righteous, by Velasco Mackenzie, I will therefore refer only to the Columbian edition, very beautiful and complete, with prologue, street map, and additional information from helping hands. I will dwell more on Jorge Salvador Lara’s Brief Contemporary History of Ecuador, which in one volume gives us a “schematic view” of our country, which he declares to be marked by heroism and tragedy, admitting that the Ecuadorian is characterized by “intense and constant struggle against adversity.” With a smooth and pleasant style, it is a pleasure to read. We know that historians, despite their declared objectivity, cannot rid themselves of their particular perspectives on human events, especially when they touch them from their own platforms and ideologies. It is noticeable that the author writes from Quito.

Free fall tests, by Leonardo Valencia, is a book that can be read in any order as it brings together articles and conferences from various periods, albeit with an astonishing fidelity to literature. Those dedicated to the novel are either a starting point or an arrival point for the reader who regularly consumes pieces of this genre without thinking much about the alchemy that sustains these precious narrative trees. Discoveries along these lines will enlighten you to get more out of your attachment to long-term stories, nested in word buildings built by creative will, transcending conventional logic. I celebrate a text in the form of a letter addressed to one writer to discuss another, none other than Vargas Llosa. Beauty, ingenuity and depth of pure gift.

I miss these three Ecuadorian books that are there, at my fingertips…

short novel, mist, by Miguel Molina Díaz, is one of those stories that spreads the literary world like a carpet because it has everything: scholars, professors, writing projects, journalists, editors, and mostly famous names. From Quito to Barcelona we walk through landscapes and streets amid waves of adventure and humor. With great irony, it is about the effort of someone who wants to be a writer without much talent and no discipline, but who seems to have “played the flute” as they say about a donkey, and that luck between ignorance and merchants in literature works. It is not true that is all it takes to get there, the novel seems to claim without explicitly saying so, because lies are revealed sooner or later. And wanting to cover up, what he declares to be a mistake could be called a crime.

I’m lagging behind these three Ecuadorian books that are there, within arm’s reach and eye’s reach. They are welcome. (OR)