What did the voice of the Nobel Prize winner for literature and diplomat Octavio Paz sound like? In how many different ways is his work, which is closely linked to contemporary history, interwoven in the literary cosmos? How does Cristina Rivera Garza tell of her sister Liliana, a victim of femicide, and the different layers of memory? How can words bear witness?
The importance of preserving literary testimonies and the voices of their authors themselves is emphasized by the "Voz Viva (external link, opens in a new window)" series of the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México(UNAM (external link, opens in a new window)). The series has been part of UNESCO's Memory of the World (MoW) Programme (external link, opens in a new window) since 2005. This aims to preserve the documentary heritage of mankind, expand free access to it and raise awareness at the same time.
Since the late 1950s, UNAM has been publishing audio recordings of the voices of Ibero-American writers and intellectuals with passages read or recited from their work in the "Voz Viva" series.
Thanks to a generous donation from the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, the original Spanish version of the 77 volumes of this extraordinary acoustic panorama, which were previously missing in the IAI collections, will soon be available in the Library and Special collections.
