It doesn’t take too much research to find information about some of the darkest chapters in the history of the written word, which are, unfortunately, many (and some of them, very recent). The burning of books perpetrated by the Spanish Inquisition, the Nazi regime, or the Latin American dictatorships; the prohibition, censorship or confiscation of titles considered dangerous by certain dogmatic, fundamentalist and undemocratic movements; the elaboration, by political or ecclesiastical powers, of lists of prohibited books that prevented the dissemination of innovative, rational, humanistic ideas, in order to keep the population in obscurantism; the prohibition of editorials and written media whose only crime was having the courage to tell the truth or support just causes as well as groups that saw their rights violated.
But each of these sad chapters carries an example of rebellion: clandestine libraries that were built in a communal manner and that allow the population to continue its formation and creating a critical conscience; books that are recovered by anonymous people who endanger their lives; Editorials that resume the editing and publishing work that those that were stopped had begun, thus guaranteeing the dissemination of the ideas that someone intended to silence. Because books have been, from the beginning of their history, a saving source of evasion, a space of freedom, but above all, a symbol of resistance.
Today is a special day for 13 Editora. Today, May 5, was the date chosen for the launch of this project. The day when we would finally go out, we would show our first works, and we would present ourselves to the world as an independent and critical editorial project. A project conceived as a training and information tool that contributes to building a more analytical and proactive social fabric.
It was not a random date, since today is the 75th anniversary of the liberation of the Mauthausen concentration camp. A field in which prisoners built an invisible window of freedom in secret: a small library made up of almost 200 volumes of different genres, authors and themes recovered, rehabilitated and guarded by the prisoners themselves.
The current exceptional context that we are living around the world forces us to delay our departure a little longer. But in a short time we will be able to start walking the path that allows us to share with you critical thinking works that, through diverse perspectives, will contribute to building a fairer society every day.
See you soon!
Image: unknown author.