For the first time in just over 20 years, a Mexican city holds the annual title of World Book Capital. This is Guadalajara, a city that has become one of the epicenters of publishing activity not only in Mexico but in Latin America, same as this Saturday morning, within the framework of the World day of the booktook on the title that puts the spotlight in the publishing world on itself and kicks off a year with an extensive program of orbital activities for that device full of letters.
The opening ceremony of Guadalajara, World Book Capital was headed by Ian Denison, director of the World Book Capital program for the UNESCO; Frédéric Vacheron Oriol, UNESCO representative in Mexico; Vera Michalski-Hoffmann, Goodwill Ambassador, also from UNESCO; Raúl Padilla López and Marisol Schulz Manaut, president and director of the Guadalajara International Book Fair (FIL Guadalajara), as well as Martín Solares, director of the program as epicenter of the book in the world, among other state and municipal officials.
Although brief, the ceremony was notable for the absence of federal authorities for Culture, whose participation in the World Book Capital program was not budgetary but only, as stated a few days ago by the Federal Undersecretary for Cultural Development, Marina Núñez Bespalova, programmatic and in kind: “they (the members of the consultative committee) asked us to collaborate in a program that has to do with libraries and with the promotion and encouragement of reading in these spaces. They are asking us to help with programming and to complete some collections in remote areas, especially in indigenous languages, which is what we are doing”.
In an interview on February 3, Andrea Blanco Calderón, general coordinator of Guadalajara Community Construction, told this outlet that the organization committee expected federal support and “that people from the federal government come to the inauguration of the capital and, obviously, , the governor”. By the way, the governor was not present at the ceremony either and the Secretary of Culture of Jalisco, Lourdes González Pérez, attended his representation.
FIL Guadalajara leads the opening
“Thanks to efforts like the FIL Guadalajarathe capital of Jalisco has become a neuralgic and strategic point for the world of books and reading”, declared Raúl Padilla López during the opening ceremony, and added: “I know that with all the work that has been done and that remains to be done, the name of our Guadalajara will remain high and will be consolidated as a cultural, literary and editorial nucleus for Mexico, Latin America and the world”.
He announced that the FIL will give the public the book “One Hundred Voices of Ibero-America. 35 years after the FIL” which, with photographs by Maj Lindström and texts by Vanesa Robles, brings together the testimonies and interviews of a hundred writers who have been protagonists of the fair during its 35 years of existence. The work can be downloaded through QR codes that will be available at the different face-to-face events of the program or through the Internet pages of both the FIL and the publisher University of Guadalajara and the Carlos Fuentes Bookstore of the UdeG.
For his part, the writer Martín Solares, as director of the program, stated that “for a year we will have the opportunity to ensure that new literary projects take root or continue to grow and branch out. We will have the opportunity to reject violence in any of its forms and work for a culture of peace through literary projects that increase culture, equality and respect for diversity.”
He added that the 20-year experience of the book world capitals program has taught “that a city that reads is a city that dreams, it is a city that imagines, a city that lives many lives, a city that remembers, that listens to others, that accepts differences, that changes and, in short, a city that reads is a better city”.
One hundred years of Saramago
Then, the traditional collective reading aloud of a literary work began, this, on the occasion of World Book Day. The text chosen for this very special edition was the novel “Essay on blindness”, from the 1998 Nobel Prize for Literature, Joseph Saramagoon the centenary of his birth, as the beginning of a year with a rich program of more than 2,000 activities that range from reading marathons, workshops, concerts, dramatized readings, literary days, book donation campaigns, seminars and artistic interventions .
Before the start of the marathon, the editor Pilar del Río, president of the Saramago Foundation, offered a few words through a video that was projected during the ceremony. She recalled that the also author of “The Gospel according to Jesus Christ” was a regular at FIL Guadalajara, where he used to meet soulmates, such as Carlos Fuentes, and on many occasions he came to celebrate his birthday at this editorial meeting.
“I thank the readers, those who are going to participate and are participating on this day and those who make it possible for literature to be this miracle that does happen to us and in Guadalajara, at least, it happens to us once a year,” said Del. River.
Immediately afterwards, the municipal president of the capital of Jalisco, Pablo Lemus Navarro, and the president of the National Chamber of the Mexican Publishing Industry (Caniem), Hugo Setzer Letsche, were in charge of opening the reading marathon.