BY TOBA SINGER AND CATHLEEN GUTEKANST
GUADALAJARA, Mexico - "It wasn't just the CIA that Che Guevara fought against in Bolivia," said Marco Antonio while visiting the Eleventh Guadalajara International Book Fair. "Che also had to fight the Bolivian Communist Party," added the high school student, as he and two of his friends browsed through the wide range of titles by revolutionary leaders displayed at the Pathfinder booth during the fair here the first week of December. Discussion and debate over the Cuban revolution was a political feature of the event, and nearly half of the Pathfinder titles sold were about Cuba.

Three hundred thousand people visited the fair, including youth, teachers, librarians, workers, and others. Nearly 900 book publishers and distributors - more than a third from Mexico and the rest from 28 other countries - exhibited this year. A team of eight Pathfinder Press supporters came from Chicago, Los Angeles, Miami, Minneapolis, New York, and San Francisco to help promote and distribute titles by the New York- based publisher. The team found a high level of interest in a wide range of titles, among them, The Changing Face of U.S. Politics by Jack Barnes, Che Guevara: Economics and Politics in the Transition to Socialism by Carlos Tablada, and the interviews with Harry Villegas contained in the pamphlet At the Side of Che Guevara, all three available in Spanish and English. A number of people were particularly pleased to find titles on working-class struggles in the United States.

A total of 98 Pathfinder books and pamphlets were sold at the fair. All told, fair participants bought 15 copies of Junto a Che Guevara, making it the top-seller. Two copies of its English version, At the Side of Che Guevara, were also sold. The top-selling book-as in other book fairs in Mexico over the last three years-was Habla Malcolm X (Malcolm X Speaks) with nine copies sold. Pathfinder supporters also sold three copies of the Spanish edition of The Changing Face of U.S. Politics, and seven copies of The Communist Manifesto during the days the fair was open to the public.

Participants bought eight copies of the magazine of Marxist politics and theory, Nueva Internacional (New International); in addition to four subscriptions and 16 single copies of the socialist monthly in Spanish, Perspectiva Mundial; along with four single copies and one subscription to the Militant.

Considered the fourth largest in the world, the Guadalajara book fair focuses on Spanish-language books. Titles in many languages, however, from a variety of publishers from around the world could be seen on display. This year Argentina became the fifth country designated as guest of honor by the organizers. The nine-day affair celebrated that Latin American nation's culture, featuring 80 Argentine publishers, panel discussions, book launchings, tango dance performances, and other cultural events.

The fair provided an important opportunity to meet librarians and distributors, book buyers and others. Pathfinder team members were able to fan out through the aisles of the fair, and had a couple dozen meetings with trade professionals from the United States; Argentina; Quebec, Canada; Chile; Dominican Republic; El Salvador. They also met library representatives from some of the main campuses in Mexico, such as the national university in Mexico City and Cuernavaca, as well as Guadalajara, Monterrey, and Puebla universities.

Some of those in the United States that Pathfinder representatives met included librarians from Albuquerque, New Mexico; Phoenix and Tucson, Arizona; Queens, New York; Oakland, Redwood City, San Francisco, San Jose, and San Mateo, California; and South Florida. A number of these representatives indicated they would welcome a sales visit by Pathfinder to their local libraries.

With the University of Guadalajara cohosting the book fair, team members decided to take books to that campus, where they set up a display. Students and professors there showed great interest in the books, and one professor commended Pathfinder for bringing such books to the campus. She invited several of her colleagues over to the display to have a look, take catalogs, and begin discussing how best to arrange for library orders and classroom adoptions of Pathfinder titles.

The team of Pathfinder volunteers distributed some 600 flyers advertising the booth and 200 Pathfinder catalogs during the fair. Most were handed out while engaging in discussions on a whole range of topics: from the Cuban revolution to the deepening crisis of capitalism worldwide to Washington's war threats against Iraq to the crisis of the "Asian tigers," and more. Many who stopped at the booth praised the fact that a publisher in the United States makes available in several languages the works of revolutionary leaders of the caliber of Ernesto Che Guevara, Fidel Castro, V.I. Lenin, Malcolm X, and others.

"It was a lot of fun, talking to so many young people truly interested in revolutionary ideas," said Virginia Garza, who joined the team from Los Angeles. Pointing to the example of Marco Antonio and his friends, Garza added, "After talking with us for more than an hour, they ended up pooling their money and buying El manifiesto comunista (The communist manifesto), La segunda declaración de La Habana (The second declaration of Havana), Mensaje a la Tricontinental (Message to the Tricontinental), and Habla Malcolm X."

In addition, two students from the University of Guadalajara "were also excited when they learned that a group like the Young Socialists, an international revolutionary youth organization, exists," Garza continued. "They all wanted to make sure the YS contacted them so that they could begin figuring out ways to work together."

Luis Madrid contributed to this article.

Thousands Of Mexican Youth Seek Truth About Cuban Revolution "A lot of hard political labor," is how Santiago Dórquez described the work by representatives of the Cuban Book Institute, the Cuban Book Chamber, and some 25 Cuban publishers and distributors at the Eleventh Guadalajara International Book Fair that ended December 7.

The event, however, had been an extremely rewarding experience, added the director of the Havana-based publisher Editora Política. "It allowed everyone of us to engage in constant political discussions with thousands, in their big majority youth, who were interested in learning the truth about the Cuban revolution." Students, academics, librarians and others uninterruptedly converged around the Cuban stand at the nine-day book fair.

"There is very little information on Washington's policy of aggression against the revolution," Dórquez stressed. "So the book fair allowed us to explain how we are not just confronting but overcoming the consequences" of the U.S. economic aggression against Cuba. "Most wanted to hear what we, Cubans, had to say," he continued, "in order to have facts to challenge the distortions they are getting." Dórquez said participants at the book fair bought several hundred copies of books, tapes, CDs, and other materials by and about Ernesto Che Guevara, Fidel Castro and other leaders of the revolution, including the Spanish-language editions of Che's Bolivian Diary, Castro's History Will Absolve Me, and Pombo: A Man of Che's `guerrilla' by Harry Villegas. In addition, Dórquez explained, a number of book distributors from the United States expressed interest in materials from Cuba.

Emphasizing how culture is prioritized in the island, he added that despite the economic difficulties they face, publishers from Cuba brought some 200 new titles to the book fair. This was "another way of showing the Cuban revolution lives," Dórquez concluded.

- C.G. AND L.M.  
 
 
Front page (for this issue) | Home | Text-version home