Writers: Family, friends… and their books say goodbye to Ignacio Solares

Yesterday, shortly before 7:00 p.m., amid long and warm applause, the body of Ignacio Solares arrived at the chapel of the Gayosso de Félix Cuevas funeral home. His loved ones, his friends and a table with some of the literary works that he bequeathed to Mexican literature were waiting for him. The writer, editor, playwright and journalist passed away last Thursday at the age of 78, he was fired by dozens of friends who have not stopped regretting his departure.

On his coffin that surrounded his family, they placed his Doctor Honoris Causa mortarboard.

From early on, the floral arrangements did not stop arriving, some sent by friends and others by institutions such as INBAL, the National University Magazine, the University Theater Center and many from UNAM. Messages of pain and admiration abounded.

The Faculty of Philosophy and Letters of the National University, Solares’ alma mater, also sent flowers and expressed its condolences. The same was done by the General Secretariat of UNAM and UNAM Literature.

Next to the coffin, friends and acquaintances of the writer placed on a table the works that gave Solares his place in the history of Mexican literature. stood out “The Night of Angels”, “The Invasion” and “The Oath”.

Several editions of the work “Delirium tremens”, in which Solares gives an account of the consequences of alcoholism, also lay on the table.

The atmosphere was one of sadness and melancholy, but also of memories and stories of the death of the writer, who with his extensive work achieved recognition such as the Xavier Villaurrutia Award and the National Award for Science and Arts. “I come to the funeral of Maestro Solares”, was heard several times at the door of the funeral home located in the south of the city, proof of the imprint that the director of various cultural supplements also left on entire generations.

In the afternoon, his great friend and literary accomplice, José Gordon, the writer Rosa Beltrán, and Myrna Ortega, his life partner, arrived to bid the last farewell to the Mexican intellectual.

In an interview, José Gordon said: “Ignacio Solares left with a lot of light. I think there was a kind of poetic justice to a lifetime dedicated to art, literature and poetry; Nacho developed his own words that accompanied him in his final moments.

The writer pointed out that “the last thing he (Solares) was working on was a book about his ‘Minucias’, which are aphorisms, brief verbal flashes that somehow illuminate a paradox, which makes you discover that poetry emerges . He publishes these lightning bolts weekly in El Universal, it is the posthumous text that he leaves us, but he also leaves us all his work that enlightens us, ”he said.

Myrna Ortega shared that her husband’s death was consistent with the work he left, which today is a cultural legacy of the country.

TC