Encounter at the Book Fair: A Memory of Literature and Recognition

In a moment that could have slipped into a private memory, the meeting between the professor and writer José Siles González happened under the strange spell of a bustling summer scene. A Book Fair, that sometimes awkward instrument designed to coax a few more readers from the printed page, offered a backdrop where a young, restless vanity could feel the weight of reality. The air carried the heat of late afternoon and the city’s hum, and the horizon wore a damp, almost suffocating polish as day bled into evening. The initial contact was a courteous, generous greeting that spoke without words, aided by a jipijapa hat that somehow signals confidence to strangers and friends alike. What followed was a shared awareness of a common respect for the work of Enrique Cerdán Tato, a writer whose craft invites measured admiration and careful reflection. Their conversation moved with a natural symmetry, as if each sentence reinforced the other’s view of art and interpretation. The moment carried a quiet urgency, a sense that serious literature commands attention even in the midst of a crowded fair and its temporary, fluttering stalls. Through the exchange, both figures affirmed a mutual recognition of literary vocation and the discipline required to sustain it. In the course of the dialogue, there arose a note of recognition for a significant moment in the life of a book that had earned institutional validation through the Ciudad de Villajoyosa Award for El hermeneuta insepulto in 1993. This acknowledgment acted not as a triumph alone but as a reminder of the long road from manuscript to public reading, a path shaped by mentorship, persistence, and the persistent curiosity that drives scholars and writers to continue probing the depths of interpretation. The encounter, casual at first glance, unfolded into a compact lesson on how public readings and awards can illuminate the responsibilities carried by authors and critics. It suggested that literary work is not merely the product of solitary effort but the outcome of dialogue with peers, readers, and the ongoing conversation that defines a national literature. In the end, the memory of that afternoon remained more than a faded snapshot: it became a testimony to how a chance meeting can crystallize a career’s broader arc, the way a simple exchange about literature can open a larger world of ideas, and how the shared language of reading binds strangers into a circle that spans time and place.