In a basement in Barcelona, ??at number 1 Carrer Sepúlveda, the only printing house in all of Catalonia that does not smell of ink is protected. The pages that come out of that building, the ONCE, don’t have letters, but reliefs, and very soon they will make up braille books. The machines are at full capacity, preparing for Sant Jordi. “Blind people are a small group, but a lot of readers. People don’t imagine it”, says Santi Moese, who is very clear that his next readings will be Todas las familias felices (Six Barral), by Hervé Le Tellier, and the last Pla prize, Born with a visual impairment never it has not prevented him from enjoying what he considers “the best day of the year”. Every year, a list is made of all the writers who come to Barcelona to sign books. “This year I would love to be able to talk to Laia Perearnau”.
Xavier Duran also likes to meet authors. “I have a bookshelf full of books signed by Joan Margarit, Javier Cercas, Javier Marías… I don’t mind not seeing them, but I like to know that they are there and that one day I could meet them and exchange words with them “. It is more appreciated that it is in presentations and not during Sant Jordi itself, because “the crowds overwhelm me a lot. When I could see it, I was already worried, but it was not that important. Now, my auditory sensation is one of saturation.”
A similar thing happens to Estela Pires, but she always ends up wandering around the stalls. “Even though you have to be accompanied that day, otherwise it’s impossible.” He has been in Barcelona for eighteen years, and from the first moment he fell in love with this party, which he had heard about in Angola. “I would like to see if I can find The Conflict of the Ages (1858), by Ellen G. White. If not, I will request it from the bibliographic service of the ONCE – which has more than 80,000 works -, to see if they can provide it to me”. If a title is not translated, any affiliate can request it for free. First it has to go through a commission, “but they usually accept you. Of course, they prioritize, as is logical, the books for students and workers”, points out Pires, who acknowledges that he has the Bible as his reference book. “Now I can listen to it in audio or read it in an e-book thanks to the braille line; but when I was younger, when I had it in braille, it took up a whole cupboard, since there were like thirty or forty volumes”.
The braille line is a device that allows the output of content in braille code from another device, such as a computer, tablet or smartphone, which allows a person who is blind or has low vision to access the information. E-books are transformed into braille. “It’s a kind of miracle”, says Moese, who remembers how in his childhood he had to transcribe textbooks at home, or listen to them read by his relatives, in order to have the same material as his classmates. “It’s fantastic to be able to carry loads of books in your pocket, and also thanks to the audio. In addition to Perearnau’s, I have the latest audiobook by Eduardo Mendoza. I’m laughing so hard. It has a lot to do with who reads it. Sometimes you don’t get attached to an author, but to the reader. We love it when we have the opportunity to meet them personally.”
Enric Botí, regional delegate of ONCE in Catalonia, explains that “our way of reading is with our hands and our ears”. He remembers the importance of being on the streets every day, because “there are people, rights and situations of equality and inclusion”. For this reason, every year the organization organizes a stop on April 23, where any affiliated blind person can pick up books for free, and any sighted person can learn first hand the reality of this group. “We will have a braille typewriter and we will teach how to read with our alphabet. When someone loses their sight, two big fears always arise: how to walk alone again and whether they will be able to read. And there are solutions for both. With a cane and thanks to braille and new technologies, without forgetting the multi-format stories, which have textures, ink and braille, in case they are read by a blind person and another with sight. The two worlds are increasingly united. They always have been.”
