The Militant (logo)  

Vol. 72/No. 46      November 24, 2008

 
International book fair opens in Venezuela
Workers’ access to literature is highlight
  
BY MAGGIE TROWE  
CARACAS, Venezuela—At the opening ceremony of the fourth Venezuela International Book Fair here November 7, minister of culture Héctor Soto outlined measures being taken by the Venezuelan government to increase book production and access by working people to books. The fair’s theme is: “For a country of readers!” More than 400 writers and artists from 20 countries are participating.

Before the election of Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez in 1998, “there were four to six bookstores, all in Caracas,” Soto said. “Now we have created 51 outlets of Librerías del Sur [Bookstores of the South] located across the country.”

Ecuador is the honored country at the fair this year. At the inaugural ceremony Galo Mora, Ecuadoran minister of culture, told his Venezuelan hosts, “We appreciate that for the first time we are being invited as the honored country to an international book fair.”

The book fair, which takes place outdoors in Parque los Caobos, attracts thousands of workers and youth. Throughout the nine-day event they can browse the more than 100 book stands, attend forums, films, and panel discussions, and listen to free concerts by a number of Ecuadoran groups featured this year.

The large tent complex of Librerías del Sur has been constantly crowded with people choosing from a selection of thousands of inexpensive books, including an array of small paperbacks for 50 cents. Young people staffing the stand hand out free copies of various magazines and reviews, including the latest issue of A Plena Voz (Speaking Out), a Venezuelan cultural review. It features articles on the theme of free Puerto Rico, including an interview with Filiberto Ojeda Ríos, a leader of the Puerto Rican independence movement, given shortly before he was killed by the FBI in September 2005.

Mary-Alice Waters, president of Pathfinder Press, will be joining Monte Avila publishers in a panel November 14 to launch the Monte Avila edition of Is Socialist Revolution in the U.S. Possible? The book is based on the theme of the debate at the central forum at last year’s book fair. Pathfinder has a stand at the book fair for the fourth consecutive year.

In addition Pathfinder is sponsoring a panel the following day to launch Nueva Internacional no. 8, a Marxist magazine of theory that features the articles “Revolution, Internationalism, and Socialism: The Last Year of Malcolm X” and “The Clintons’ Antilabor Legacy: Roots of the 2008 World Financial Crisis.”  
 
 
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