The interest for the reading could reach unexpected levels and this is the case of Pierre, a pretty normal young man who always liked reading. When he was a child, his father taught him how to read, every day they went to the store for buying the newspaper and then, when they arrived home, Pierre had to read it.

So, his father gave him his first book: “Journey to the Center of the Earth” of Julio Verne, and since this moment he did not stop having a book on the hands. During his adolescence, while other boys of his age were discovering new games, new ways of stamping on the ball and new places to where taking girls; Pierre was discovering Cortazar, Garcia Marquez, Borges and Proust. He preferred so much the fantastic narrative, the curiosities of Borges, Macondo’s magic and the majestic description of Vargas Llosa in The green house. He was, during his first youth, a boy dedicated entirely to the books of literature.

And when he was fifteen years old he came to the conclusion that he would not find the best books in Spanish, because he was already reading any Latin-American writer, he felt the curiosity to be able to read more of the European writers, philosophers, Anglo-Saxons; but he had to wait a lot of time in order that some publishing editorial printed the versions on Spanish. Therefore, one day he decided to learn a second language, it was more than necessary, and he did. He decided to learn French, by his own, reading and revising interviews and articles in French and trying to understand them thanks to the support of his grandfather who knew something of this language. It was difficult, but after a lot of effort, he managed to convince his parents in order that they paid him an bilingual school specialized in the French career education.

It was not difficult for him, because as they were advancing the classes, more time was dedicating to the reading of books, leaflets and magazines, little by little he was discovering French writers, deciphering paragraph to paragraph as he was digging an exchequer up. While, he was continuing with his solitary habit of eating books, now with the possibility of eating French books too. Those who knew him, had got used already to see him -or hear him - to speak in French when he was alone. He repeated and repeated the learned totally the phonetics, but in the he looked a personage lacking in sanity who was relaxing speaking alone. What he did actually was to devote himself completely to the task of learning French.

And he did it in two years, learned the language of the country of love and devoted himself to read almost all the classic French authors. Pierre was studying journalism, but it was less important for him to be employed at some diary, rarely he was worrying for looking for some work relating to his profession, only he was dedicated to the reading, and writing of chronicles and articles, almost all based on the life and work of classic authors. Time later, he decided to continue learning another language, this time was the English, a necessary language for the labour and useful aspect also to extend the literary baggage. It was as well as to a few months, he started to study English in a North American institute.

After English, came Italian, and the last thing that I knew was that he was speaking Portuguese. He has never practiced his profession until as a columnist of newspapers, he is principally a translator and researcher.

See this article in Spanish