I didn't plan to be a writer, it happened. I grew up in a journalistic family with lots of books in the house. I studied literature myself, but when I started lecturing on it, I had to try it out in a way - by translating and writing it myself. That's how it started.

Thinking on the issues I want to talk about, I can say that I'm very fond of the odd one out, the outsider - it's a sign of a healthy society if you allow someone to be out of the predictable and generally accepted. There is humanity associated with that. But literature must first tell stories through protagonists and write out feelings. Everything else must seep through unobtrusively.

Writing literature in our times and in spaces that are engulfed by wars or radicalisms is in a way an act of resistance. I know that those who incite hatred will not read these books. But they are a sign of the decision that life is nevertheless on track, that many people want to communicate respectfully, and that humanity is a value for them. Language itself can make a story by association.

One of my books, Los sabios hipopótamos, has been translated into Spanish.  This is a collection of short stories about two hippos and their friends: everyday things seen from a different, perhaps not so everyday perspective.

To the Mexican and Latin American readers and all those attending the FIL, I tell them that the new social media are time eaters. Books give it back to us. I think that

Do books have the potential of uniting people and cultures? I think that he/she who reads, thinks. Reading books certainly helps you understand yourself and others.