Karla Ceceña recovers in a book details of the capital ignored by its inhabitants

Chronicling Mexico City is a task that countless people have undertaken, from Hernán Cortés to Francisco Cervantes de Salazar and, more recently, Salvador Novo, Carlos Monsiváis and Ángeles González Gamio; However, the work has endured over the centuries and requires only one thing from those who continue the tradition: inhabit the place with an attentive eye.

For Karla Ceceña, author of Charm and mystery of Mexico City (Aguilar / Penguin Random House), “there are still many stories that can be told.” Above all, he assured in an interview with The Day, because this metropolis is constantly changing. “Too many things have been discovered since the first chronicle that mentions the capital,” he noted.

He stressed the importance of rescuing texts with a “feminine footprint”, since among the long list of writers the names of Madame Calderón de la Barca, Amado Nervo, Guillermo Prieto, Ignacio Manuel Altamirano, Vicente Quirarte and Juan Villoro stand out – most of them men. However, “there have also been many women who wrote about this place.”

Ceceña’s interest in the capital arose after a period away from the country. During a stay in Alicante, Spain, where he did a student exchange. Then he discovered everything he didn’t know about his hometown. “There I did everything I didn’t do here, like going to book presentations and exhibitions,” he explained, so when he returned, he decided to tour and experience the city “with the eyes of a tourist.”

The city belongs to everyone

Charm and mystery of Mexico City recovers areas and details of the capital that may be so obvious to those who live there that they ignore their importance. Furthermore, it invites those who enter the text to discover streets and “stories that have not been told.”

In around 200 pages, the anecdotes of someone who writes a book for the first time in his life stand out; That is why the stories are so intimate. Ceceña introduces his audience to his thoughts and interests with the enthusiasm of someone who tells a friend about his favorite topics.

The author weaves a series of data that are intertwined in a single theme: Mexico City. In his stories he appropriates second-hand bookstores, monuments, buildings, museums and streets. He writes “our” when referring to a place, because “in the end they are our streets. The city belongs to everyone, anyone can reach the places I mention. Sometimes it is thought that culture is only for a specific type of person, for those who have a lot of money or time to read and buy books,” he explained.

In addition to this publication, Karla Ceceña takes tours together with the followers of Ciudad Literaria, a project that emerged in 2020, to explore bookstores and libraries, as well as to chat about the stories of literature that are set in some corner of this metropolis.