Guatemala’s Book Fair Becomes Annual

by David Unger -- Críticas, 8/15/2008 8:59:00 AM

Amid growing interest and confidence in Guatemala’s book culture, nearly 300 book professionals—librarians, booksellers, writers, and critics—attended the fifth Feria Internacional del Libro de Guatemala (Guatemala International Book Fair, known as FILGUA), held July 25–August 3 in Guatemala City’s Parque de la Industria. There were 105 exhibitors—an increase of 28 percent since 2006—from 12 countries, including Argentina, the Guest of Honor; though public turnout fell short of the numbers achieved at the last fair, in 2006, most publishers, including Mexico’s Fondo de Cultura Económica and Guatemala’s Editorial Universitaria and F&G Editores, registered more than a 30 percent increase in sales.

Indeed, at the July 25 opening session, fair directors confidently announced that FILGUA would become an annual affair, with strong backing from the Guatemalan government. Shortly afterward, Mexican author and 2006 FIL Guadalajara Juan Rulfo Award (now called FIL Literature Prize) winner Carlos Monsiváis gave the keynote address.

A country of readers

Guatemala suffers from the reputation of being “El país de no lectores” (“the country without readers”), so FILGUA set as its objective “Vamos por un país de lectores” (“Let’s become a country of readers”). Still reeling from 36 years of civil war, with the by-product of ensuing gang warfare, violent crime, and femicide, Guatemala is not an easy place to build readership. FILGUA, however, has provoked understanding of the need to address issues of literacy, the promotion of reading, and the paucity of public libraries in the country, while at the same time raising the importance of eliminating value-added taxes on books.

At an event held in the National Palace of Culture, honoring the more than 80 attending writers, host Jerónimo Lancerio, the Minister of Culture and Sports and a Sakapultec Maya, was presented with a petition signed by 154, mostly rural, library directors urging increased government spending and the creation of new libraries. Immediately after the fair, a bill addressing the promotion of reading was introduced in the Guatemalan Congress. Indeed, there was a sense during FILGUA that after years of neglect, the Guatemalan government would begin addressing literacy issues, this in a country ranking second to last in spending for education in Latin America.

International writers

In contrast to previous fairs, this included a first-time focus on presenting CILCAC, an International Conference on Contemporary Central American Literature, which attracted nearly 70 scholars from nearly a dozen U.S. universities, as well as academics from Mexico, Spain, Honduras, Guatemala, and Costa Rica. Though attendance at some panels was sparse, it was solid at those focusing on the work of Nicaragua’s Gioconda Belli [Waslala, La mujer habitada (The Inhabited Woman)] and Sergio Rámirez Mercado (Margarita está linda la mar); Guatemalan-American Francisco Goldman (The Art of Political Murder: Who Killed the Bishop); Honduran Horacio Castellanos Moya; and Guatemala’s Augusto Monterroso.

Also this year, FILGUA presented its second Programa del encuentro de escritores centroamericanos (Central American Writers Conference), which attracted writers such as Tatiana Lobo (Costa Rica), Jacinta Escudos (El Salvador), and Eduardo Halfon (Guatemala), one of the Hay Festival’s “39 writers under 39.”

Also for the second time, FILGUA offered the Simposio Internacional de Literatura Infantil y Promoción de la Lectura (International Children’s Literature and Promotion of Reading Symposium), which attracted over 120 librarians from across Guatemala to take part in collection development seminars and workshops over two days. The Salón del Libro Iberoamericano de Gijón (Gijon’s Iberian Book Salon) sponsored the symposium, which included guest speakers Olalla Hernández Ranz and Lara Meana, two literacy specialists from Spain.

International challenges

One panel of the Writers Conference on “The Challenges That Central American Literature Faces in the International Market” drew an especially large audience. Dante Liano, a Guatemalan author and critic living in Italy, discussed the paucity of translations in Italy and wondered if all Latin American writers had to imitate Isabel Allende and Gabriel García Márquez to achieve visibility. [Nonetheless, a recently published anthology in Italy, Voci Migranti (“Voice of the Migrants”; Marotta & Cafiero, 2008), includes, among 15 writers, eight Latin Americans, three of them from Central America.]

Andrea Montejo, a former Rayo editor and now a literary agent representing Latin American and U.S. Latino authors, said it was becoming more difficult to publish such authors in the United States, given recent cutbacks by publishers. [María José Castaing, a French editor and translator, said that approximately 60,000 new titles are published in France each year and that, though 14 percent are translations, they include only about 270 from the Spanish, of which a small fraction are literary titles.]

Though few Central American writers appeared in English translation in 2008 [e.g.,  Castellano Moya’s Senselessness (New Directions), Rámirez Mercado’s Margarita, How Beautiful the Sea (Curbstone), and Rigoberta Menchu’s Secret Legacy (Groundwood)], panelists encouraged Central American writers to submit stories and poems to the various quality online Spanish-language magazines, such as Etiqueta Negra, Letras Libres, Carátula, and Granta, as a way to increase international exposure.

Next year’s fair

FILGUA will take place in Guatemala City in 2009 July 24-August 2, with Costa Rica as the Guest of Honor.In the meantime, North American librarians interested in buying books from Guatemala should visit the Guatemalan Book Chamber’s stand in FIL Guadalajara this November. The Chamber’s two-booth stand will showcase publications by Guatemalan publishers, with many new titles on hand. For more information, contact FILGUA director Yanira Gálvez at yanira.galvez@filgua.com or Guatemalan Book Chamber president Raúl Figueroa Sarti at presidencia.editores.guatemala@fygeditores.com.