Vol. 71/No. 8      February 26, 2007

The previous evening, the book fair was inaugurated at an event attended by Raúl Castro, Cuba's acting president. Minister of Culture Abel Prieto addressed the gathering, in which numerous other government ministers and prominent Cuban writers and artists participated. The event was broadcast on TV and covered widely in the press.

Argentina, the book fair’s country of honor this year, was represented by its secretary of culture, José Nun. This year's fair is also dedicated to two Cuban writers, poet César López and historian Eduardo Torres Cuevas.

In his speech at the inaugural event, López said the Havana book fair is "not about the exploitation of many for the benefit of a few, but about the full dignity of man," a result of Cuba's socialist revolution.

He emphasized that Cuban culture encompasses the work of all writers and artists. At the fair, he said, “The book is king, without exclusions of any kind.” He said the literary festival must "go beyond any limitations our culture may have shown, borne, and suffered over the years."

López gave a roll call of dozens of leading Cuban writers throughout the country's history. The list cited not only literary figures such as Alejo Carpentier and Nicolás Guillén, but a number of prominent Cuban authors who in past decades left the island because of their political opposition to the revolution and who are not published here. Among these, he mentioned Guillermo Cabrera Infante, Heberto Padilla, Reynaldo Arenas, and Jesús Díaz.

The remarks by López were charged with meaning for those in the audience because of debates on the Cuban Revolution's cultural policy that have unfolded here since the beginning of the year.

The controversy was precipitated by a January 5 TV interview with Luis Pavón. As director of the government's National Council of Culture in the first half of the 1970s, Pavón implemented policies against many writers, artists, and others deemed politically unreliable that prevented them from being published or having the materials and conditions necessary to work. Such policies, institutionalized in the Soviet Union by the 1930s and later by other Stalinist regimes, made inroads in Cuba during the 1970s. They were a reversal of the policy, championed from the beginning by Cuba's revolutionary leadership, of guaranteeing full freedom of artistic expression to all but the open enemies of the revolution.

The favorable TV portrayal of Pavón sparked outrage among many artists and writers. Following several meetings between a number of them and government officials, the leadership of the Union of Cuban Artists and Writers (UNEAC) issued a statement, published in the January 18 issue of the Cuban daily Granma, that shared "the rightful indignation" of its members at the TV program and underscored the fact that "from the very first moment we had the most absolute support of the [Cuban Communist] Party leadership." The statement reaffirmed the revolution's "irreversible" policy of cultural freedom.

As part of the ongoing discussion, UNEAC organized a January 30 conference, attended by some 450 people, including Minister of Culture Prieto, at Casa de las Américas, a major Havana cultural institution. It was addressed by writer Ambrosio Fornet, who called for public discussion and education about the 1971-76 pavonato (Pávon reign), a period often referred to in Cuba as the Quinquenio Gris (Gray Five-Year Period). Fornet stressed the importance of this especially for the newest generations, who know little about that history.

At the February 8 book fair inauguration, Prieto applauded López's theme of embracing all Cuban writers regardless of their political views, calling his list "enormously ecumenical." His remarks were widely seen as a reaffirmation by the Cuban leadership that there will be no return to the censorship and ostracism of the 1970s in the field of culture.

Prieto highlighted the expanding breadth of the book fair, which this year will travel to 39 other cities, ending March 11 in Santiago de Cuba. Since becoming an annual event seven years ago, the fair has grown in attendance from 150,000 in Havana in 2000 to more than 5 million nationwide in 2006.

He announced that more than 1,000 titles with a combined print run of 8.5 million will be available at the fair, compared with last year's total of 5.5 million.

In addition to Cuban publishing houses, 82 publishers from other countries have exhibits. Among them is Pathfinder, which this year is presenting, in English and Spanish, The First and Second Declarations of Havana.
 
 
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