Miguel Hernández, historic bookseller at Antonio Machado, dies | Culture | EUROtoday

At quantity 17 Fernando VI Street, within the central Justicia neighborhood of Madrid, three white marble steps took you to swing doorways and into the previous headquarters of the Antonio Machado bookstore, now moved to Plaza de las Salesas . Once by way of these doorways, one discovered oneself in entrance of 1, leaning on a protracted desk of novelties, holding a cigarette whose ash one balanced in order to not fall, the face of Miguel Hernández (died on April 30 in Madrid at 72 years previous from pancreatic most cancers), a bookseller who, throughout greater than 30 years of career, earned the correct to have a large number of followers who, earlier than saying howdy, already had a guide of their arms held out by Miguel. “You have to read this” or “take this book and tell me” and there was no extra dialogue: it was the guide that, with out realizing it, needed to be taken.

Sandor Marai, Coetzee, Cormac McCarthy, Rafael Chirbes… when nearly nobody had heard of them Miguel had already put them within the arms of lots of of purchasers. He was at all times a person of robust convictions and vehemently defended his opinions in impromptu gatherings. When somebody got here in asking about books in English, his response was “we don't work on barbaric languages ​​here,” or if somebody requested a few guide of questionable high quality, he made it really feel, at all times with humor, that the accountability for purchasing the guide was not his. .

In 2006, extreme pneumonia triggered him to be admitted to the hospital for a number of months. That 12 months, whereas within the hospital, he requested Marta, a co-worker, to take him as quickly as he arrived. Journeys by way of the Scriptorium, of his beloved Paul Auster. Shortly after leaving the hospital he determined that he needed to step apart and go away the bookstore, he went to reside within the countryside, in Navalcarnero, along with his spouse, Virginia, amongst cats and canines, and an in depth assortment of books. In a short while he started to collaborate with the municipal library, as an advisor, and got here to the bookstore to pick books that ought to fill the cabinets of the place. As probability would have it, Miguel left us a couple of hours earlier than Paul Auster, additionally a sufferer of most cancers, a type of winks of probability so typical of the New York creator. They mentioned on the crematorium, with that black humor of Miguel's that he displayed till the final moments, that he had made positive to not miss a single line he was going to write down, whereas the final tune that he left in writing to be performed performed within the crematorium. to fireplace him. “To the barricades”.