IT has now been confirmed that Argentina will be
the guest country of honor at the 2007 International
Book Fair, as all "seasoned Cuban readers" have
discovered in this year’s program.
The confirmation did not actually occur at the
main venue of the book fair, San Carlos de la
Cabaña, but instead on the television program Mesa
Redonda, hosted on this occasion by Arleen Rodríguez
Derivet.
Among the program’s guests was Argentina’s Sub-Secretary
of Culture Pablo Wisznia who thanked (before the
official act) the selection of his country by the
Havana fair, which—he said— has made him understand
that there are two types of book fairs: one of book
sellers, where a book costs the same as on the
street, and another, like this one in Cuba, of books
and reading, where the publishers are interested in
the books being read by the people.
Wisznia confessed that he was impressed by the
fact that 500,000 individuals are attending the fair
and making purchases. "Now there are a million more
books in homes," he exclaimed.
In a brief historical summary, he recalled
Argentina’s long literary and publishing tradition,
which also includes —he emphasized— a long
publishing tradition with Cuban authors, but he
lamented, "my country has suffered 30 years of
economic and cultural destruction. They not only
murdered Walsh and Urondo, but they also destroyed
the publishing industry."
He noted that "luckily today this is beginning to
be reversed and new authors are appearing, and new
books," for which —he affirmed— "they can count on
our participation in what has recently begun to
flourish." He also promised "to do everything
possible to bring Argentine literature to Cuban
readers."
Gold Crown
The fair has been dedicated to poet Nancy Morejón,
National Prize in Literature who has been in high
demand (GI also published an extensive interview
with her). Now on Mesa Redonda, with unusual modesty
and much reluctance, she announced that next August
she will receive the Gold Crown at the Las Noches de
Strougal Festival in Macedonia.
Rodríguez Derivet noted that this prize has
previously been given to Pablo Neruda, Rafael
Alberti, W. H. Auden, Janis Rizzos and Leopold Sedar
Senghor, among others.
Among her merits that the notice from Macedonia
recalled were her concern for history, gender and
Afro-Cuban roots, the novelty of her ideas and her
poetic technique.
In her opinion, the fair "is a warm interaction
with readers, a dynamic relationship."
Britto y Calloni
The Argentine journalist Estela Calloni attended
the fair to launch her indispensable book,
Operación Cóndor, Pacto criminal (Operation
Condor, Criminal Pact) and also to participate in
the Enciclopedia contra el terrorismo
de Estado (Encyclopedia Against State
Terrorism) by the In Defense of Humanity
intellectuals network that was presented by the
Cuban Minister of Culture Abel Prieto.
Calloni described the fair as "a grand cultural
even, conceived apart from brutal commercialism."
She said that it is a pleasure "to see young people
buying books, which in Cuba is natural, but at this
magnitude, it is extraordinary."
Meanwhile, Venezuelan Luis Britto shared the
sentiment that in Havana "we see that a reading
culture exists, that there is a delirium, a frenzy
for books, which allows us to see the social
consequences of our work, and to know that writing
is not a solitary exercise."
A Cuban reader can obtain this Venezuelan
intellectual’s titles El imperio contracultural:
del rock a la modernidad (The alternative empire:
from rock to new wave) and Venezuela:
investigación de los medios fuera de toda sospecha
(Venezuela: investigation of the media above
suspicion), which analyzes the media coup against
President Chávez.
Nosside Prize
"Foreigner, if you navigate toward Mitilene,/with
those beautiful open spaces,/the land of Saffo that
received,/the flowers of the Graces,/ tell them that
the Muses loved me,/ that the land of Locri saw me
born/ and that my name is Nosside... VE."
The 2005 Nosside Award ceremony took place in la
Cabaña, with the participation of its president
Pasquale Amato and a panel of judges. The winner was
Jorge Osorio Naranjo of Havana. This award is
sponsored by the UNESCO Global Alliance for Cultural
Diversity and by the UNESCO World Poetry Directory.
Presented, sought after, snatched up...
Every day thousands of readers browse the
bookshops and conference rooms of La Cabaña. It was
useless to try getting a peek into Nicolás Guillén (the
largest capacity room) for the launching of
Príapos, by Daniel Chavarría, or into Lezama
Lima, where the Arte y Literatura publishing house
presented Memorial de convento (Convent
Memorial) by José Saramago, or into the Guillén when
Venezuelan Monte Avila presented El vano ayer
(The Vain Past), winner of the 2005
Rómulo Gallegos Award, in the presence of its
Spanish author Isaac Rosa.
It remains unknown what will happen on closing
day (February 12), but the imagination says that:
the release of Ciento volando de catorce by
author...Joaquín Sabina will be a massive success.
