Eduardo Mendicutti and the founder of Librería Berkana, Mili Hernández, lay down texts and documents claiming the LGTBI movement in the Caja de las Letras | On International Pride Day, the writer left behind several originals and editions of three of his novels
The first rainbow legacies that are the Caja de las Letras houses of the Cervantes Institute were deposited this Tuesday by the writer Eduardo Mendicutti and the founder of Librería Berkana, Mili Hernández. On International LGBTI Pride Day, they left behind books, texts, photos, documents and objects protesting the movement of which they are part and an active, ongoing and long-standing struggle for rights and equality. A legacy received with “pride” by Luis García Montero, director of the Cervantes who claimed “diversity and difference as a common good”.
Recovering from a recent knee surgery, Mendicutti was unable to travel from Sanlúcar de Barrameda (Cádiz), where he lives. His editor in Tusquets, Juan Cerezo, deposited his estate in box 1177 after the writer explained it in a video. “All these years I have accompanied the LGTBI militants with my writings in their advances for the conquest of the rights of all of us and I have looked for something that, apart from its literary qualities, well represents the turnaround of this country and the collective in these years”, said
The journalist and activist writer chose the typescript of ‘A bad night anyone has’, the adventures of some transvestites on the fateful night of 23F that earned Mendicutti the City of Barbastro Award. “I don’t know if it’s the best or the most memorable of my novels, but it’s the most important. It represents the transition from dictatorship to democracy,” he said. He added successive editions of this fiction which appeared in 1982, a copy of the original of ‘Tattoo’, his first novel, Sesame Prize in 1973 and which was censored, an edition of ‘Cenizas’, his second novel, published Café Gijón Short Story Prize only as a booklet, and several newspaper clippings from his early years of career -«when he had beautiful hair»-, including a glowing review signed by Leopoldo Azancot.
“All my novels deal with homoerotic issues and reflect politically on the need to create a balanced Spain, knowing that no country is in equilibrium if it does not have the presence of the LGTBI community, its history and that of women,” he said. For Juan Cerezo, Mendicutti’s novels are “a wonderful testimony to the evolution of the oral language of some groups”, highlighting his ability to tell profound themes without losing his sense of humor and irony.
If Mendicutti is a reference in Spanish gay literature, Berkana was the first LGTBI bookstore in Spain and Latin America. “It was the nerve center of information and connection for homosexuals from all over Spain who knew and know that they can find there what they need regarding their way of being and life and to glimpse the horizon that opens us awaits,” said founder Milli Hernandez.
“This is the greatest recognition for our bookstore in its 30-year history,” Hernández boasted before depositing his estate in box 1178. He introduced the groundbreaking catalogs published since it opened – “critical for the collective before the internet”- , together with four «essential» books: ‘Identity and difference on gay culture in Spain’ (1997), by Juan Vicente Aliaga and José Miguel García Cortés; ‘De Sodoma a Chueca’ (2004), in which Alberto Mira outlines the cultural history of homosexuality; ‘Deseo y Resistencia’ (2009), by Gracia Trujillo, the history of lesbians in Spain, and ‘Ours is indeed global’, by Ramón Martínez (2017), “which explains very well what has happened in the last 40 years” .
Hernández added a map of the Madrid neighborhood of Chueca, now gay area, a poster and a banner that read ‘For the rights of gays, lesbians and transsexuals in Spain’ made with a pillowcase ‘from when we paraded in 1994 on the 25th anniversary from the ‘Stonewall Revolt’ in New York”, the gay bar in Manhattan that rose up against repeated police harassment and promoted the international fight for their rights. “That day they gave us the Spanish flag with the eagle because it seems that they found out that Franco had died and we had to wrap him around a banner to hide him,” Hernández recalls between emotion and amusement that parade who changed his life. life and promoted your bookstore.
“Berkana has been the vehicle for making the LGTBI culture visible. Back then we didn’t have any books and the readers were on the shelf,” the founder recalls. “Culture is a healing space and Berkana has been for tens of thousands of members of the collective,” Hernández added. “I emigrated because of my sexual orientation in the 80s without knowing who I was or what was happening to me. In the 1960s and 1970s, there were no references and homosexuality was not discussed in schools or in families. When Mari Trini was rumored to be a lesbian, like tennis player Martina Navratilova, I found the first references,” said the bookseller and creator “out of necessity” of Egales publishing house, another unavoidable reference for the LGTBI collective.
After the bequests were handed over, a round table discussion was held entitled ‘The common good of Difference’. Mendicutti and Hernández took part, as did the writer Luisgé Martín, the artistic group Cabello y Carceller (consisting of Helena Cabello and Ana Carceller), and Fernando López, a researcher and artist specializing in flamenco. The meeting was led by the Cervantes Institute’s Deputy Director of International Relations, Philippe Robertet.
Source: La Verdad
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