By Mirka Zarazúa Medrano
Note written on September 3, 2022, Querétaro.
On September 2, the second day of the 2022 QUERÉTARO HAY FESTIVAL, a presentation about reflections on memory, showcased the memory of the great literary voice of guest writer Gonzalo Celorio.
Mónica Lavín, the author of the successful book “Yo, la peor” I the Worst), spoke with Celorio about his latest work, “Mentideros de la memoria” Memory’s Liars. That work harkens to writers like Eco, Fuentes, García Márquez, Rulfo, Cortázar, and other literary rock stars. He described his experiences with many of these authors, telling what it was like to talk to them, noting the various chance encounters in the world of letters throughout his career and the adventures and misadventures while always maintaining a great sense of humor. These details, found in his engaging book and the details he shared during his talk, were delights worth discussing.
Celorio began by declaring that “one almost never writes for certain reasons,” such as “already knowing everything you are going to say.” He also stated that there is a time when rereading becomes more important than reading, when years give memory a value that it did not have before. Through memory, you can become a collector of those moments you lived through, and after many years some memories are diluted with a veil perfumed by memory. Memories are sweated and swallowed by our inevitable perception. He took the opportunity to talk a little about the alleged friction between fiction and reality, stating that from his point of view, it is nothing more than “an invention.”
Celorio said, “when one speaks of “memories,” one often speaks of facts, but also of fiction because fiction is another instrument to expand reality. This book constitutes a story told from his shoes even though he considers himself a spectator of everything he has lived through, including those memories of great authors who impacted his life, retold from the lucidity and fictional brilliance of the memory. In his remarkable work Memory’s Liars, Celorio creates a space where people can talk, a space full of memory.
