Deckchairs in a park invite local citizens to read, relax, socialise and spend quality time outdoors. The pop-up open-air library will also organise social gatherings, such as book readings and a debate on literature and gender.
Debate on gender equality and literature
On 15 November 2021, the Library under the Treetops opened in Buenos Aires with a discussion on gender equality and literature. The opening took place at the main entrance to the Mariano Moreno National Library (BNMM), which hosts an open-air library in the nearby Rayuela Square. The meeting was opened by the BNMM Director Juan Sasturain, the Slovenian Ambassador to Argentina Alain Brian Bergant and Diana Broggi, who is the Undersecretary of Training, Research and Cultural Policies for Equality at the Argentinian Ministry of Women, Genders and Diversity.
Ambassador Bergant presented the Europe Readr project and digital platform and the traditional Slovenian project titled Library under the Treetops. He thanked all project partners for their cooperation, donating books for the open-air library. Director Sasturain briefed the participants on the BNMM Library and its role in issues related to gender equality, while Undersecretary Broggi described the role of language and literature as tools for recognising inequality and interpreting the world.
The ensuing discussion included Susana Villalba — a poet, writer, dramaturge and literary critic, Lucia De Leone — a researcher at the National Scientific and Technical Research Council and lecturer at the University of Buenos Aires (UBA), and National University Institute of Arts (UNA), and the author Belén López Peiró. The three speakers not only talked about their own experiences as authors working in contemporary literary society, but also as women, readers and members of Argentine society, who face many challenges in their lives.
Events at the library
For the next three weeks — until 3 December 2021 —visitors to the BNMM Park will be able to relax in the pleasant outdoor atmosphere of the library and choose from more than 400 different literary works originating from more than 20 countries. They will enjoy a comfortable reading session while resting on loungers and pillows or sitting at convenient tables.
Until the end of November, individual EU member states will be hosting small events in the library, mostly on reading poetry, children’s literature, mask making and music. The events will be organised by Poland (18 November), France (19 November), Slovenia (25 November), Spain, (26 November), Germany and Spain (27 November) and Portugal (28 November).
‘Gast Groeber’s short stories in Every Day Just Hides Another put the focus on characters that increasingly distance themselves from their usual surroundings. The story ‘A Village Idyll’ describes the life of a man who has been ostracized by the villagers ever since he ran over a boy with his car. Groeber smartly shows how the real circumstances of the accident, which have an essential influence on our moral judgement, are no longer taken into consideration at all once the culprit is found. Groeber’s description of the threat to the individual by the Others is also cleverly done: in these stories, it is never clear from the start whether the threat is merely imaginary or very real. Interpersonal relations float between the superficial and a precarious intimacy.
What should be highlighted in Every Day Just Hides Another is the obvious desire to achieve a consistent topical conception that only a few texts don’t follow. Groeber also aims at a decidedly literate, yet always natural language, which is quite an achievement given the limited stock of role models. The attempt for example to construe a character perspective using only impersonal phrases and infinitives that the author makes in ‘The Unbearable Weight of Waiting’ is utterly successful.’