I saw Valente's personal library in the University of Santiago two days ago, guided by Claudio Rodríguez Fer, the head of the Cátedra José Ángel Valente. He hardly had any novels at all, save for a few by Tabucchi, or Kafka, or by the greatest Spanish novelist of his own time, Juan Goytisolo, who was a fervent admirer of Valente. He had Tristam Shandy, but he didn't really have copies of very many novels, if you consider that the novel is a major genre of modern literature since the seventeenth century.
The languages he read in most were Spanish, French, English, Italian, and Galician. He had a lot of Dante.
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In this case do you trust the archive? I remember at the house of Leopardi being shown through the library, and seeing books that weren't even published in his lifetime (Eugene Sue). But that's a municipal tourist attraction, not a university collection. I hope they didn't discreetly purge his stash of Vázquez Montalbán.
In this case I do. The archivist is a friend of mine and the collection is very true to life.
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