More than a story that contains it, literature has the form of a journey where it expands. The first stop may have been in Greece, on Ulysses' ship. But no one can say it, and besides, no one should try to do so: surely before there were other ports still ignored, other sirens to hear.

Instead of the anatomical prescription of the canon, why not surrender to a more lucid and random order, which detects the clandestine meetings of writers, the surprising kinships, the most unusual mixtures? There is no literature without amazement, there is no reader, no authentic reader, without the discovery of an unexpected filiation. Every time that happens, the history of literature restarts and is a little younger.

Naturally, there is no trip without a suitcase. Frankenstein's, that monster made up of so many parts, is that of all writers: Sarmiento, Mary and Percy Shelley, Byron, Borges, Benjamin, Pamuk, Piglia, Libertella. Each text, noticed or not, is a little Frankenstein; sometimes not so small. In this luminous and happy essay, with remarkable illustrations by Daniel Santoro, the cautious intelligence of Luis Gusmán reveals mysteries, fortunes and misfortunes of that suitcase that passes from one pen to another, from one trip to the next, from literature to the reserve that protects it.