Author Description

Around books and the library, varied subjects arise, creating a sort of plot. Conversations of two Josés. Stories of family, of learned languages, of the beginning of a collection, of the gifts to negotiate of the boy who was still broke, of the advance of the library when he was already an entrepreneur. José Mindlin sets off to buy more rarities. Chance always doing his own. The reader will naturally get to know their humanitarian ideals, political positions, admiration for writers, international trips, especially the first one, which brought the ship Almirante Saldanha to Brazil. There is a narrative thread that acts as a skimming through life, in which Mindlin commits itself to collective interests, to the struggle for equality and justice, tolerance, non-acceptance of the primacy of the market over the individual. From him we inherited the lesson of social responsibility, the fleetingness of material goods, the unfair concentration of income and property. He always affirmed that the business community should act to correct such evils, in order to recognize and pay off the immense social debt to the dispossessed. He always condemned all forms of repression and violence. I would call him a libertarian, which he always was, even if, modestly, I didn't.