3. THE BLANKET OF THE LITERATURE 
"Every birthday, my Mom gave us a little green book, was The Iliad, the Odyssey and Don Quixote de la Mancha,
but in versions for children," Elena Poniatowska
"As a child I had a governess who told me: When you can read it is going to want to hide to walk just reading, it will go to get to the corners with his books. Then I could not read, but pretended to each other and sat in a corner with a book. "
of social chronicles Kikus Lilus
The craft of journalism and the quest to find one after every story makes Elena goes beyond the daily pages who writes for the paper, published in 1954 Lilus Kikus, magical book.
appears that the narratives describe, but she says it does not fully reflect the element enters fiction. "A character is built with oneself, but also other traits, with elements that have hit one and that at any given time are present.
"When I wrote the book I found my calling writer, because I've never thought of that, it was just something I started doing as a job, "which opened the doors for a rich literary production which today has more than 40 titles, some classics in the century Mexican literature XX.
Elenita In this road trip with a large number of interviews published in the newspaper she was born in Excelsior, and in the newspaper Novedades. Which portrays Mexico and the great characters who passed through our country.
all started on Sunday, published in 1963, a book that was a great success thanks to the duo Poniatowska - Beltran, not conceived the work if either of them missing. That is why 35 years later surprised by the comments of Alberto Beltran was once the companion of Ellen, the book on fatherhood.
In an interview conducted by journalist Ornelas of Finance in March 1998, Alberto Beltran says: "It occurred to me on the street take notes on scenes from the day of rest for everyone, I showed the manager of the New Supplement, Raul Puga, and liked it, he thought my idea to publish pictures of what people did on Sundays, "but suggested that the drawings Puga take texts. At that time Beltrán
illustrated interviews in Mexico Elena used to publish in Culture, the cultural supplement of News. Raul's proposal was to change the roles: she wrote the texts realized Beltrán drawings.
Initially, the artist refused, arguing that the journalist did not know the country and said some of the texts that appear in the book, he wrote, referring especially to sites outside of Mexico City.
"Today Elena refuses to admit it, but if you check the News can distinguish the texts that I wrote and which are hers, and not always with me."
why when Ornelas journalist asked if he could clarify it, evaded to the question by saying that not kept in memory and never delivered anything like proof?
The reality is that Elenita ever denied credit, whether she wanted her name came after Beltran. In the first edition of the Economic Culture Fund and the reprint of the editorial Ocean, because the two had collaborated.
internationally acclaimed writer, Elena Poniatowska, you need not hang from anything or anyone. Just look at your novel to not see my Jesus that is transcendent of Mexican literature, which opened the doors wide and stained with garlands.
Elena, who is known for concern, ventures as a teacher in the literature workshop in San Angelo, and one of his students Gabriela Brimmer said he wanted to know, what the writer agreed to visit her at home one day and found a woman in a wheelchair with cerebral palsy with left foot, always barefoot, he learned to draw on a board placed at the feet of his wheelchair alphabet letters and form words. Sari
Months later, Gaby's mother, Elena called out for home again. The writer held three lengthy interviews with the mother, Sari Brimmer, the nanny, Florence Sanchez Morales, and the very Gaby. Thus was born the book Gaby Brimmer in 1979. After twenty days of its launch eight thousand copies were sold.
Following the success of the work, Luis Mandoki was interested in bringing him to the big screen. "I got in touch with Gaby, but I completely eliminated Mandoki. In the film never gave me credit. The man is dishonest and tricky I've found in life, "she tells Michael Schuessler author of Elenísima.
In an interview with Juan Antonio de la Riva, film director, he mentioned that it is valid Luis Mandoki take the direct testimony of Gaby Brimmer putting the edge of what might be plagiarism to take the idea as a result of the success of book written by Poniatowska.
"But I did not know if Elena demanded. If you did not was because there was no plagiarism. I was at the premiere of the movie and I remember that among the guests was Poniatowska and yes Mandoki gave public recognition. I do not remember is whether the credits of the film is or not. "
But the problem is that "Mandoki Gaby filmed a true story, and the title is a fallacy, because you hear about Gaby's life through the book and most of the scenes are taken directly from it. Gaby was hard to invent another biography, "reads the website http://www.sepiensa.org.mx/contenidos/gbrimmer/gbrimeer.htm
What is a fact is that Brimmer would have gone unnoticed if the writer Elena Poniatowska does not publish the book. Since the overnight Gaby was a spectacular success. Dead at age 52 of a heart attack, Gaby knew the glory, first with an autobiography, Gaby Brimmer, who published editorial Grijalbo, then with the film version of this book made in Hollywood in 1987.
La noche de Tlatelolco ... expressive force
memory
Poniatowska My first encounter was when I was a student of the College of Sciences and Humanities and was through his book The Night of Tlatelolco, a work that reconstructs the interviews and testimonies Student slaughter of October 2, 1968 which killed more than 300 students in the Plaza of Three Cultures in Tlatelolco, as was known in the world.
In words, portrays the political and social movement defined by it as a mass without apparent heads that will achieve the largest independent mobilization of Mexico's modern history: the extraordinary motion after the Mexican Revolution. Spend a lawyer and a writer of stories.
On October 2, Elena was filled with indignation, because he did not believe that something so terrible had happened. He learned through the night when they went to see Mary Alice and her friend Mercedes Martinez Olivera. They told him there was blood in the buildings, which were drilled elevators with machine gun bullets, the windows of shops were destroyed. Told what seemed absurd. His son Philip was four months old and she still nursing.
next day, the writer went to the scene and felt a moral obligation to reveal things, "At seven o'clock I went to Tlatelolco. There was no water, no lights and soldiers lined up in front of the phone. Among the prehispanic ruins vi shoes.
"I began to collect testimony. Everything I said Mary Alice and Mercedes Olivera what I typed. The next day I looked for Oriana Fallaci, Italian journalist in the French Hospital, who initially was taken to Hospital Rubén Leñero and refused to give his statement until the embassy was unaware. I saw her in a wheelchair, had no major injuries because he left the hospital two days and took a flight to Acapulco. Italian parliament called to ask him not to come from that country's delegation to the Olympics in protest to the government of Mexico.
"She said she had been a war correspondent in Vietnam and that at least sounded a siren before they started bombing or shooting, people could shelter in a refuge, and that night had seen the soldiers fired on a population. They were also in a closed square, was a trap, they could not leave. I took my interview to News and rejected as they had orders not to publish a single note "Poniatowska describes in his book The Night of Tlatelolco.
In newspapers, the information is reduced to a minimum, is famous heads of eight columns on 3 October, "a sectarian minority sought to change the course of the Mexican Revolution," the set of events is described as "subversion", the Bailiffs seize photos in newspapers and films in television news, the weather is tension and shock.
The first manifestation of protest against the massacre of October 2 by the Assembly of Intellectuals and Artists was published on October 5 in Excelsior and the three people that take the newspaper were Juan Garcia Ponce, Nancy Cardenas and Hector Valdes , who stopped a few hours later released as Carlos Monsivais, "Twenty years of La noche de Tlatelolco", the weekly magazine La Jornada, 13 October 1991.
The experience of the massacre of the students had a strong impact on the life of the writer. The extent of saying that after Tlatelolco all we got older.
In The Night of Tlatelolco you can see the harshest denunciation of government repression told through its pages. This set of voices, echoes, reactions, and the talk of political confrontation in 745 accounts.
The book went to press a week before I left the President Gustavo Diaz Ordaz. Was published when all the newspapers refused to broadcast the events of the student massacre. The reaction of power was against the writer. The Night of Tlatelolco is one of the books that allowed precisely that on October 2 is not forgotten. The book received no publicity and the only review was conducted by José Emilio Pacheco, who knew the book manuscript and helped Elena to correct. Came out three years after the violent events.
From the time of President Díaz Ordaz known repeated repression against journalists and publications. PIPSA allegedly also reduced or denied the paper supply. That is why in the interview with Raúl Cárdenas Durán deputy editor at the time of the newspaper Novedades repeatedly said the shortage of paper and therefore we trimmed his journalistic material Elena or the best took him out in two or three series. After Excelsior exercise its criticism of the slaughter of Tlatelolco, 1969 a bomb attack was committed against the newspaper building. The government claimed the attack left.
In 1971 the then President of Mexico, Luis Echeverria Alvarez was awarded the Xavier Villaurrutia prize for his book, and she rejected him in a letter which was published in Excelsior censored asking: Who is going to reward the dead ...? That was not a book to celebrate but complaints.
"The government already was accustomed to bear the full, to downplay. Francisco Zendejas told me the next day telling me what I took for The Night of Tlatelolco, but to not see my Jesus. When days before Fausto Zapata Echeverría private secretary told me he was delighted by the prize awarded to me, "recalls indignantly.
From there he was heavily criticized by the forces of power, because she still had French nationality and told him how dare someone abroad about the movement, who had no rights. Reason enough to be nationalized, although I had taken the Mexican identity. So feel assaulted by criticism. "I worked in Mexico and I did what was involved and I never thought if I was Mexican or French.
"One day I received a call from Governor reminded me that it was foreign and possessing FM 2 way, I had the French passport until 1969 or 1970. When I told William I were casting the beam asked me, what passport you have? I told him I was French, the next day I took with Gabino Fraga, Foreign Secretary, who nationalized and I told my husband and me that was proud that I was Mexican.
proud of it, more than two decades of nationalization, he repeats, smiling: "I think if the mother give the nationality of any case I would be Mexican because my mother's maiden name is Love."
Night of Tlatelolco is one of those phenomena unusual: a cultural and literary phenomenon becomes political, says the writer Carlos Monsivais, in La Jornada week: "The night in 20 years are minimal because of the importance they attach. But none of the other twentieth-century Mexican books, which I consider fundamental, has had better luck unless it becomes a textbook. Today's wisdom is notorious Poniatowska to organize their materials, to fragment, to choose direct testimony and emotional, to dispense with the roll as possible. "
For his part, Jose Agustin said: "The Night of Tlatelolco always struck me as admirable for its literary and artistic status. The book transcends its own nature and acts as a great literary art, as the deepest impact on the reader, stir the feelings, besides documenting the events of the 1968 student movement and its global context. " Weekly Day, October 13, 1991.
Elena In the same publication with a touch of generosity, makes public its appreciation to one of the leaders of the movement of 68. "The book I share with Raul Alvarez Garin, without whom the night of Tlatelolco had been impossible since he cited in his cell to informants Roberto Escudero, José Agustín, Hugo Hiriart, Hernán Lara Zavala and Gliemo Graciela, who have given many battles not only political, but against his inner demons that are the hardest. "
A 29-year success of The Night of Tlatelolco mistimed a cry was heard in 1997 when it reached the hands of the student leader of 1968, Luis González de Alba, the book The Imperial Presidency, by Enrique Krauze. It argues that when he started to read some quotes thought they had been taken from his account of the days and years and refer to the paragraph in his book, he realized that some had been changed and that these had been taken from the book Poniatowska. González de Alba
quoted in the magazine Nexos, "Elena helped me out Lecumberri the finished manuscript of the days and years. In mid-1970, Elena went to jail to interview then employ to write La noche de Tlatelolco. A few weeks later I received from Elena's request for permission to employ elements of my story.
"Of course I agreed with pleasure. My book was not good start in sales, and the mixture of my story, years of discussions between prisoners boring, was not what the reader wanted. Elena found a splendid work, many voices and with a striking title. The writer sent me to jail where he was at my third year in prison, with a generous covering two-page dedication Text and flowers drawn in purple marker. "
The questions are in the air ... Why did he wait 27 years?, If he testifies that the book of The Night of Tlatelolco came into his hands and read it. Not objected to anything! Besides his book The days and years, as he quotes it in his weekly column in the newspaper La Jornada Science in the street, on Monday, October 13, 1997, "came out shortly before that of Elena." That book was just recognized as the best of which were written in reference to the movement of 1968. Being awarded the Xavier Villaurrutia, and said nothing! Prize as we know was rejected by the journalist.
On the other hand, Miguel de la Vega, in the magazine Proceso, November 2, 1991, quoted from the interview on the origins of The Night of Tlatelolco that Esteban Ascencio made Poniatowska and would even work as a result of what I said Elena Poniatowska.
"The Book of The Night of Tlatelolco I started in late 1968 and throughout 1969. Sunday was going to Lecumberri, the bars will be fitted to one. Thanks to Raul Alvarez Garin that I met in his cell talking to many of the participants of the 1968 student movement. Raúl was a leader that everyone felt, what he said was done.
"The Night of Tlatelolco owes everything. If he says a los demás: “No hablen con Elena”, simplemente no hay libro. Por lo general, los domingos los presos me apuntaban en la lista de Gilberto Guevara Niebla, cuya familia estaba en el norte. Alguna vez también en la de Raúl. Si no, imposible entrar. Luis González de Alba había escrito una novela excelente.
“Como era domingo y llegaban sus visitas, los estudiantes entraban y salían de la celda de Raúl y les pedí que me escribieran sus vivencias: así lo hicieron, me las hacían llegar a través de Carlos Fernández y Carmen Merino. Después los líderes ya no escribieron nada, quizá por desesperación, porque se hartaron o porque salieron a Chile. El que sí wrote a lot, because had the makings of a writer and his story is impressive and truly lived, was Luis Gonzalez de Alba. Based on testimony and interviews armé, many voices, La noche de Tlatelolco. When nobody did, except the mothers of the boys wanted to give his name. "If I tell, but cámbieme name." Of course, nobody wanted to return to Military Camp Number One. "
One day the third anniversary of the slaughter of Tlatelolco, the correspondent Elsa Arana Freire, announced an interview for the magazine 7 Days titled "Elena Poniatowska and the Tlatelolco massacre, in which tells the story of the book.
"I I had thought to make only a story about The Night of Tlatelolco. But after that night I told myself that can not be explained without knowing the existence of the movement. The result was a book that was divided into two parts: first, win the street, with testimonies of incarcerated boys and others outside the prison whose names changed, and second, the night of the slaughter that is the most dramatic where there are testimonials from journalists and others. This made the book as a collage.
"Most people would answer in the same way: we arrived at 17:30 hrs., Came a green flare of a helicopter, then entered the army. Cornered all people with a pincer movement ... Everyone I exposed the same and told me if I repeat a hundred times drained the account. So I decided to choose the most exciting or the most significant of each witness. So I say that my book is a kind of collage, montage went to see the number of leaves with repetitions. "
other time of the interview will inquire to the writer: the testimony that appear there have been armed, as amended? To which she replies: "many of them do, because they were long and repetitive, some as unusual. People to tell the facts did not calculate the time, time, or distance. Also reported facts that have never been proven, as in Tlatelolco bodies and corpses were cremated, the bodies in dumpsters. The slaughter was completely disproportionate. "
In 1968 Mexico was a nation of secrets and lies, where rumors trumped facts, propaganda masqueraded as news, and officials were accountable to anyone. As a result, there is not an official version, nor an unofficial which explains its enduring mysteries, Kate Doyle process concluded on October 2006.
If the book The Night of Tlatelolco had been written the day González de Alba made the "clarification" and demanded his claim would be accepted, but as mentioned before, Mexico in 1968 and during the Dirty War, was a country without freedom and full of secrets, so Elena had to use the resource of the interview technique, changing names on their accounts of the night ... to avoid repression by the government.
The situation then the date has changed greatly over the years is very easy to call and request credits season, but neither claim won by González de Alba Elena may terminate the honor and credit have written what is considered so far the best book about the events of that October 2, 1968.
Jan dies In 1968, his younger brother, in a car accident on the road to Queretaro was heading to a family farm in Tequisquiapan. It was extremely painful for Elenita, and loved it. From that date on each of his books inscribed to the memory of Jan 1947-1968.
"When I wrote the dedication: To Jan and all those who died in 1968, created some confusion because many people thought I had done the book because Jan had died in the events of Tlatelolco. He himself was part of the student movement and once told me he had gone to the National Palace to paint graffiti and had participated in some way, but died on October 2, but later, Dec. 8 at Calpilalpan.
"A truck rammed the car he was driving, unfortunately died at age 21, was a tragedy for the whole family, but especially for my mother."
At home retains many pictures where his brother Jan and a jasmine scent memory.
In 1979, he died the father of the writer collapsed with the death of his son, he could never overcome. For his part, Elena's mother has always suffered in silence for the loss of his only son. Elenita
been characterized as a quiet woman who never speaks of love, the one I remember with great affection and admiration is Dr. William Haro, who died on April 27, 1988.
"A few days before my mother died I told him he had won the Alfaguara award. Then she said: Good, so now you're not going to write. For her, it was like a curse, "said Angelica Abelleyra in the interview" Elena Poniatowska: the eternal why. " Poniatowska
moves with discretion and modesty undertaken by a criticism: "I am overly critical and tend to be harsh or bitter not forgive me anything!". Hence the character and education of the writer not allowed to peek inside and see the good side always recognize los que han compartido con ella.
“Me cuesta hablar de mi persona, me quedo en lo anecdótico, me invade un temblor interno, me excito, es un examen…”, un examen que no está dispuesta a presentar.
"Every birthday, my Mom gave us a little green book, 
En 2002 se publicaron las primeras Leyes de Transparencia y Acceso a la Información Pública Gubernamental, también el involucramiento legislativo en la materia en los Estados de la República Mexicana. 
End of war." Plato