In Colombia, a garbage collector with a passion for reading saved 20 books (photos and video)

SAVE THE BOOKS

It all began on his first night on the job, when, working a shift in the Bolivia neighborhood, a wealthy neighborhood in the northern part of Bogotá , Colombia, he came across Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy. The masterpiece was among the garbage , but José Alberto Gutiérrez , a street cleaner by trade , couldn't bring himself to abandon it to its sad fate, so he decided to take it home. Twenty years have passed since that first discovery, and what seemed like a casual gesture, driven by instinct , has over time become a true mission.

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A STREET CLEANER WHO SAVES BOOKS

Mr. Gutiérrez still drives the garbage truck today, and in the meantime he has cleaned out around 20 volumes, many of which are now stored in his small home in San Cristóbal, in the southern part of Bogotá. A home that, as Adam Boult reports in The Telegraph, has become a sanctuary for books . Mr. Gutiérrez's house has, in fact, been transformed into a library—one that truly has nothing to envy of the official ones—not only for himself but also for the neighborhood community. This special garbage man has wanted to dedicate a service especially to the little ones , who can stay at his home on weekends to read or borrow books. All strictly free of charge.

DON'T THROW AWAY YOUR BOOKS

So what might seem like a simple hobby is, for Mr. Gutiérrez, a mission. During his long years of street activism as a garbage collector, he discovered that, sadly, in the city's wealthy neighborhoods, throwing away books is a widespread bad habit. And there's no particular predisposition; novels, essays, fairy tales, and detective stories end up in the trash. That's why Mr. Gutiérrez's library is varied and can provide its readers with any genre. Today, this book-loving garbage collector is nicknamed " the Lord of Books, " and he explains that his predisposition for reading " is the best gift my parents could have given me, " because "they were my salvation."

Photo credit: Guillermo Legaria/AFP/Getty Images, published on “The Telegraph”

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