They open the dream world of José Agustín in tribute organized by UNAM

The dream world of the writer José Agustín, who died in January last year, opened on Wednesday night during the tribute that was paid at the University House of the Book of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM). There some writings were read in which the narrator and playwright described his dreams, and that remain unpublished so far. In them overflows love for their family, luminosity and music; Even the mention of the intellectual José Revueltas.

The book, which will be edited posthumously this year, brings together a selection of dreams written in a notebook by the author of The tomb For a decade. The writer and researcher Gabriela Lira offered a sample of those texts, which can be used for her readers continue to establish that affective and literary bond with the author.

Lira began with the reading of a dream scored by José Agustín (1944-2024) on Saturday, September 18, 1976: “Two young gringos, blond, Jipis, accompany me in an apartment on the first floor with an old garden. On the second floor arrive one or two young people who say security agents and who accuse the gringos of marijuana smoking. They have not smoked it at the moment, but they do. The agents confiscate her. They extort them.

The gringos give them money and the agents leave. I witness everything but I have nothing to do. After a while we heard a lot of noise on the second floor, where the agents are. We go there and we discover that they are not police and that they are smoking the confiscated marijuana. Then it is the gringos who terrify the others, threatening them to give them away, until they recover money and drugs. The light is alive and intense.

One year after the death of José Agustín, on January 26, 2024, family, friends and readers commemorated the life and creation of the author, with the participation of José Agustín Ramírez Bermúdez, son of the renowned writer, and the novelist Enrique Serna.

There, Lira pointed out that the selection of these writings is “great interest to readers, to take their conclusions and know that other aspect of José Agustín: the autobiographical one. I had already published at the time, very young, The rock of jail; later, Diary of a Brigadista, and with the dream newspapers it would be the trilogy of that autobiographical work. ”

The researcher commented that in those stories to the author “he obsesses the issue of light, and describes it quite accurately: ‘diaphanous, golden, white, crisp, evening’. It extends in that series of adjectives. Surrounded by light are their familiar, especially their life of a lifetime, Margarita Bermúdez. ”

Gabriela Lira explained that the narrator’s widow appears as a guide, guardian, counselor, inciter and, always, as an essential part of his personality, who is afraid to lose and gets lost in his dream trips, but always the resentment.

Exemplified what was written on Wednesday, March 17, 1977: The sky is dark, but in Margarita and I there is light. On April 26 of the previous year he consigned: I finally get home, alone. In the background, bathed by a bright, clear, golden light, is Margarita in the kitchen, waiting for me. I see her very beautiful.

On April 16, 1976, he referred to her again: “We are inside a noble, stately house, white, clean, gloomy stone. Margarita and I went out to the patio, which is very white, and is bathed in the sun. We both go back to heaven. It is totally clear and the blue is very beautiful. Clean. Almost totally clear, except for a minimal transparent evening, but I perceive very well. I get Margarita again and comment: ‘As a beginning, it’s not bad, right?’ Finally, she and I walk in peace, hugged, for the patio. ” In an dimension that this dream had the day they married.

Lir The rock of jail.

He argued that the characters in those dreams listen to music; For example, there is one where they see the Rolling Stones and they are listening Sympathy For The Devil.

They were also present in these stories literary figures such as José Revueltas, with whom José Agustín had a close relationship.

On April 14, 1976, the day the politician also died, described the reverie: I am in a very wide place. Clear. Out of all real context. I saw an old peasant who offers me some marijuana. I thank you for the offer, because I usually have to supply myself with a corpulent lady, age, Morena, peasant too, who now appears on my right. The peasant, also old, is on my left. There is great darkness, except for the point where we are, because there the light is white, intense, proven.

From that occasion, José Agustín said: This dream happened at one and 30 in the morning, more or less at the time José Revueltas died, and for a few seconds I hesitated if it had been a dream or if I had imagined it, since I was in an extremely strange state.

Gabriela Lira added a couple of dreams that have Andrés and José Agustín Ramírez Bermúdez. On the latter, that of September 11, 1976: Margarita and I have had a girl (a fictional daughter) who was born healthy and beautiful. Margarita takes care of her with love and devotion. We are in a small, dark bedroom, but a beautiful golden light illuminates us. My Agustíncito son has very long, silky eyelashes, like a very fine vine, crowned by small spheries, like flowers that announce a fruit.