That mix of guru and diva of American television that Oprah Winfrey is, recommended his books. Singer Patti Smith, in shock after reading it, put music to his texts. In ¨Now You See Me, ¨ recent super Hollywood production , one of the protagonists appears reading ¨The Savage Detectives.¨ And Juan Villoro says in New York he met "two young writers who paid $ 50 for the page proofs of ¨2666¨ to read that book before anyone else." On the other hand, the Mexican writer also met in his country an aspiring poet at the height of happiness because he managed to pet a dog that, as he was told, when puppy had met the author of ¨Distant Star¨ ("The teacher chooses the disciple, "a famous blind wrote," but the book does not choose its readers, who may be evil or stupid "). The Chilean writer Roberto Bolaño, for not few readers, is the new prophet. In fact, there are many out there who would even solemnly swear it with a hand on The Savage Detectives or perhaps over 2666. Others, of course, overlook his work with the "prior fervor" and "mysterious loyalty" that Borges attributed to the reading of...

In the picture of Juan Villoro in the cover of his works published by the Anagrama Publishing House, he appears in front of a desk with an open book or notebook. The head of the black-bearded and wide forehead Mexican writer is slightly turned to the left, with his attention centered to someone or something outside the image, though he is likely to be just thinking rather than looking at something in particular. But, thinking about what? I would like to believe he is thinking on what he was reading in that moment. I may be wrong and Villoro might actually be thinking about something pedestrian like tomorrow´s errands (in case he did errands) or in that dinner he was invited to and he is not willing go. However, the image seems forged due to its perfection and eloquence. Yet, perhaps the writer is thinking about the nuisance of posing for such a picture. Juan Villoro, as many people know, is the son of Luis Villoro, renowned Mexican intellectual and philosopher. He was born in Mexico City, in 1956. His love for aphorism, which he has cultivated himself, and for rock, is well-known by those of us who have had...

It is said that someone asked for his most unusual experience. And it is also said that Guillermo Vidal replie d: "A guy threatens me with a gun and he was who cowers." Perhaps both the answer and the question did not ever exist, or maybe they did. If this were the case, even the story of the gun could be an apocryphal anecdote. However, the fact is that that image, the one of the man undaunted by the barrel of a gun, ideally defines the literary lineage to which Vidal belonged, i.e. the one of those that never, not even for a moment, hesitated to contemplate the face of the Gorgon. Let us think for example in Dostoevsky, in Celine, in Faulkner in Arenas. It is very likely that Roberto Bolaño , confessed admirer of indomitable, wild and reckless writers, would have been fascinated by Vidal’s work, which has been awarded inside and outside Cuba. I was lucky to personally meet Guillermo Vidal (Las Tunas, 1951-2004). On the contrary, I've indeed read all his novels, and stories, and that, I think, is the best way to meet a writer. Most of his friends agreed that he was a guy...