The deep respect his name evokes has to do with the idea of ​​travel. All language research involves a journey, like that of someone who leaves Ithaca only to return, years later, with healed wounds and wisdom. This was the career of Cecilia Ansaldo Briones, from Guayaquil, born in 1949, who dedicated her life to teaching, essays and literary criticism, that is, to rigorous care for the language we speak in Ecuador. Furthermore, he was the main manager of the International Book Fair in Guayaquil, of course the main one in the country, precisely because in Quito we failed, in every possible sense, to articulate and hold a true event of those characteristics.

There must be many writers and readers who passed through her classrooms and with whom she shared her lucidity. Just as there are many of us who read her in her column in this paper. Her tireless work meant that she was accepted as a full member of the Ecuadorian Academy of Languages, which corresponds to the Royal Spanish Academy, and she did so with the speech “A Harmonious and Deep Voice: Women and Poetry in the Work of María Piedad Castillo Levi and Aurora Estrada y Ayala”.

I managed to meet her in person last year, during the fair in her city in 2023. When I greeted her, she told me that she had read mist, my novel. I was extremely happy that Cecilia Ansaldo took into account the debut work of a young writer from Quito in her readings. On that occasion, I could see for myself the level of organization of the fair: there were authors and intellectuals from all sectors of the literary and political spectrum. The high sense of plurality showed that, unlike Quito, the design of this event did not have cronyism (and thus hostility) as a central parameter. I feel great pride that the first launch of my novel was in the Main Port and at that gathering.

Former President Carlos Julio Arosemena Monroy said that “being a native of Guayaquil is an attitude towards life and a decision towards death”. I remembered that when I decided to write a dedication to Cecilia Ansaldo of Guayaquil, for everyone

what she gave to her cultural and literary work, especially as a critic and connoisseur of the genre of short stories and women’s literature. Furthermore, her reader’s contribution is impressive, precisely through the comments in her columns, always intelligent and critically capable, always generous when possible and, above all, always aware of this impassable and definitive end, sometimes nebulous and forgotten, that constitutes Ecuadorian literature . Is this decency and lucidity your desired Ithaca? His attitude towards life, haughty and serene, allowed him to respect the deep meaning of the literary tradition: to use language to denote shame. Because of this, a few weeks ago she was attacked by a deranged, rustic and thug (I’m quoting, of course, Alonso Quijano). Cecilia Ansaldo neither likes nor agrees with that. She will continue to be what she is: a great teacher of our literature. (OR)