The hypothesis of intense booing at the La Rural property due to the cuts and defunding in different cultural areas dissipated when an official from La Libertad Avanza understood that he would never be able to play at home in the face of a publishing industry hit hard by inflation, the fall of sales in bookstores, and the threat of the repeal of the law that establishes a uniform retail price. Perhaps sensing that many voices would shout as if they were on a platform, and that he was going to have a bad time and perhaps they would not let him speak, the Secretary of Culture of the Nation, Leonardo Cifelligave up participating in the opening ceremony of the 48th Buenos Aires International Book Fair, which will have Lisbon as Guest City of Honor. For the first time in history, the government will vacate its place on the list of speakers and will not be present with an institutional stand. The main speaker will be the writer Liliana Heker, who anticipated that she will deliver a critical speech about the political reality of the country.
Confirmed on the list of speakers for the opening event are the president of the El Libro Foundation, Alejandro Vaccaro; the mayor of Lisbon, Carlos Moedas (who will give a virtual greeting because he could not travel for the 50th anniversary of the Carnation Revolution); the Portuguese ambassador to Argentina, Joseph Ludovice; and the head of the City Government, Jorge Macri. Cifelli, who got off at the last minute of the inauguration, confirmed that he will attend the presentation of the book by Javier Milei, Capitalism, socialism and the neoclassical trap on Sunday, May 12, at 7 p.m., on the central court of La Rural, a space that is not occupied or managed by the El Libro Foundation, organizer of the Fair. The president of the El Libro Foundation said earlier this month that this edition will be held in a context where the economic situation is “complex” for 90 percent of the population and acknowledged that “many people will not be able to buy a single book.” .
The price of tickets is a difficult toll to overcome for salaries that have not increased in line with inflation. From Monday to Thursday you will have to pay 3,500 pesos; From Friday to Sunday (and the May 1st holiday) admission will cost 5,000 pesos. One option is to buy the pass for three different days on the website for 7,500 pesos. Each ticket will be accompanied by discount vouchers for the same value for the purchase of books at the stands. Every day, children under 12 years old, Cultural Pass holders, and teachers will have free access. Retirees will have free access from Monday to Thursday. The hours to visit the Fair are Monday to Friday from 2 p.m. to 10 p.m. On Saturdays, Sundays and holidays the opening will be from 1 p.m. On Saturday the 27th the Night of the Fair will be celebrated and the La Rural property will be open until midnight. Admission will be free from 8 p.m.
The sparkle of Lisbon will illuminate Buenos Aires. The delegation from the Portuguese capital will be headed by Lídia Jorge, one of the most important and awarded authors, accompanied by emerging voices such as Yara Monteiro and Bruno Vieira Amaral. The Lisbon presence will include music, exhibitions, a film series and the announcement of an extraordinary subsidy for the translation of Portuguese authors with the intention of arousing the interest of independent Argentine publishers. Among the invited authors of different generations and aesthetics, Rosa Oliveira, Isabela Figuereido, Susana Moreira Marques, María Inês Almeida, Joana Bértholo, Francisco José Viegas, Felipe Abranches, Afonso Cruz, Pedro Mexia, André Tecedeiro, João Pedro Vala and Afonso Reis Cabral. In the access tunnel to La Rural, illustrators André Letria and Sara Feio accepted the challenge of reflecting in 8 images what Lisbon means to them.
Stand 705 of Grupo Octubre in the Blue Pavilion will be dedicated in this edition to the memory of the writer and journalist María Seoanenewspaper columnist Page 12who died at the age of 75 on December 27, 2023. The programming will include talks, book presentations and news from the Octubre publishing house, such as love the countrywhich compiles Seoane’s editorials in the magazine Faces and masks. On Sunday the 28th at 7pm it will be presented Outside! The role of education and science in anarcho-capitalisma work in which the authors propose an urgent debate on the rights to education and knowledge from a plural perspective, in the face of the threat of a government that explicitly intends to abandon compulsory schooling and leave science in the hands of the market. Daniel Filmus, Dora Barrancos, Alberto Kornblihtt and Nora Bär will participate.
In the year in which four decades of the death of Julio Cortazarthe author of Hopscotch will be the axis of the Reading marathon, which will take place on Tuesday the 20th at 7 p.m. in Zona Futuro. The executor of the work of Adolfo Bioy Casares will display the sample The side of lightwith photographs taken by the author of Morel’s invention. There will also be tributes to María Kodama and Luis Chitarroni. In an edition in which large international visits are scarce, they will be presented at La Rural the French writer David Foenkinos, the Chilean Diamela Eltit, the Spanish Sergio del Molino, winner of the Alfaguara Novel Prize; the poet Elvira Sastrewhich attracts crowds and will also give a recital at the Opera Theater; the Italian psychoanalyst and writer Luigi Zoja, and the Ecuadorian Mónica Ojedaamong others.
One of the great novelties of this edition is the Dialogue of Native Writers, which is celebrated for the first time from May 8 to 10. The purpose is “the visibility of indigenous communities that remain quite in the shadows, behind the story of a white country that Argentina is not,” says the writer. Fabián Martínez Siccardi (Río Gallegos, 1964), coordinator of this meeting in which Liliana Ancalao and Silvia Mellado, writers from the Mapuche people, will participate; Victor Vargas Filgueiras, writer from the Yagan people; Chana Mamani, writer from the Aymara people; Darrel McLeod, writer from the Cree people (Canada) and Dida Aguirre, writer from the Quechua people (Peru). The other big news is that There will be a closing of the Fair with a debate “Culture at the center of the scene”, on Sunday the 12th at 5:30 p.m. in the Victoria Ocampo room, with the participation of Beatriz Sarlo, Martín Kohan, Hernán Lombardi and Lucas Llach. The moderation will be in charge of the journalist María O’Donnell.
*The complete program can be consulted, day by day, on the El Libro Foundation website.
