Literature, translation and nation-building

WHEN I was a teenager and I started to read rather compulsively, I did not mind bestsellers at all. I knew those are books that today might be in fashion, but tomorrow could fall into a deserved oblivion, as most of them actually do. I wanted to read books that generations of readers before me had appreciated, books that had passed the test of time, books that provided not only entertainment, but answers, or even new questions I had not thought of before: books that mattered. And for that purpose, I had to go to books tagged as classics, the canon. This does not mean I do not read from time to time detective novels from Agatha Christie or terror stories as the ones by Stephen King. I do and I enjoy it, but literature is somehow like wine, and good books are able to leave a lasting, meaningful, sometimes indescribably flavor in your palate; and that wonderful impact can be remembered years later.

Against popular opinion, classic books are not difficult to read: they are difficult to write.