In a basement in Barcelona, at number 1 Sepúlveda Street, is the only printing press in all of Catalonia that does not smell of ink. The pages that come out of that building, the ONCE building, do not have letters, but reliefs, and very soon they will make up a braille book. Many, actually. The machines are at full capacity, preparing for one of the most special days of the year: Sant Jordi. “We blind people are a small group, but very reading. People can't imagine how much,” says Santi Moese, who is very clear about what his next readings are going to be: All Happy Families (Seix Barral), by Hervé Le Tellier; and the latest Pla award, La germandat de l'àngel caigut (Destiny), by Jaume Clotet.
Being born with a visual disability has never prevented Moese from enjoying what he considers “the best day of the year.” Every year, she makes a list of all the writers who have influenced her and who come to one of the stops in Barcelona to sign her books. “This year I would love to be able to speak with Laia Perearnau. I am finishing her book The Passer (Destino), which tells the life of a woman who risked her life against the Nazis in World War II, and I am loving it.”
Xavier Duran also likes to meet authors. "I have a shelf full of books signed by 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 was able to meet them and exchange words." He prefers to do it in presentations and not in Sant Jordi itself, because “crowds really overwhelm me. When I could still see a few years ago, it already worried me, but it wasn't that important. Now, however, my auditory sensation is saturation.”
Something similar happens to Estela Pires, although she always ends up walking around the stops. “Although that day you have to go accompanied, otherwise it is impossible. That's the only thing I like less, the lack of independence, although the company is always good. Otherwise, we all breathe the magic.” She has been in Barcelona for eighteen years, and from the first moment she fell in love with this popular festival, which she had heard something about in Angola. “I would like to see if I can find the one about The Great Controversy (1858), by Ellen G. White, an American writer that I have always had my eye on. If not, I will ask the ONCE bibliographic service if they can provide it to me.”
If a title is not translated, any member of the organization can request it free of charge. First it must go through a commission, “but normally, they accept it and you usually have it in about two months for your enjoyment. What they do prioritize are the books for students and workers, since they need it more, and in less than a month they have it. They helped me with everything in law school,” says Pires, who admits having the Bible as his bedside 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 little, I had it in Braille, on paper, and it took up an entire closet, since there were about thirty or forty volumes. It is very difficult for a blind person to have a complete physical library. But digital, yes, and this is a wonder that many of us would not have imagined not so many decades ago.”
The braille display is a device that allows the output of content in braille code from another device, such as a computer, tablet or smartphone, allowing a blind or low vision person to access the information. “It's a kind of miracle,” says Moese, who remembers how in his childhood he had to transcribe many of the textbooks at home, or listen to his relatives read them, to be able to have the same material as his classmates. “It's fantastic to now be able to carry loads of books in your pocket – thanks to your tablet and the braille display. And also thanks to the audio. I usually read two books at the same time, one in this way, which is Perearnau's, and another in audiobook, which is the latest by Eduardo Mendoza. "I'm laughing a lot." Of course, with all the advances in which a voice is involved, “who reads has a lot of influence. Sometimes, it's not that you get hooked on an author, but on the reader. “It makes us especially happy when we have been able to meet them in person.”
Enric Botí, territorial delegate of ONCE in Catalonia, explains that “our way of reading is with our hands and ears, which allow us to transmit information to the heart and head.” He remembers the importance of being on the street every day, because “the people, the rights and the situations of equality and inclusion are there.” For this reason, the organization is setting up a stop on April 23 at number 10 Rambla, where any blind member can pick up books for free and any sighted person can learn first-hand about the reality of this group. “We will have a braille writing machine and we will teach how to read with our alphabet. and whoever wishes can have their name printed. We will also encourage whoever approaches to guess letters from our alphabet and whoever guesses them correctly will win a gift. We will have a good time and it will be a fantastic opportunity to do pedagogy,” he is convinced.
“When someone loses their sight, two great fears always arise: how to walk alone again and whether they will be able to read. And for both there are solutions. With a cane and a guide dog to orient yourself; 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 a sighted person at the same time. The two worlds are increasingly united. They always were,” she concludes.
