It all started as a rumor on April 4: the president Javier Milei I would go to the book Fair to present his latest work: Capitalism, socialism and the neoliberal trap, a book made up of several articles about which he spoke with Infobae. There were more than 20 days left until the opening of the Fair and the news spread through the newsrooms and networks. But above all he surprised the El Libro Foundation, the entity that organizes the Fair. For the first time in many years, the National State had withdrawn all its stands at the Fair.
In other words, under the government of Javier Milei The State turned its back on what is the most important cultural -and political?- event in the country. The enormous Presidency stand would not be there and they had even ordered the removal of the Banco Nación stand, whose presence had already been agreed with their authorities. First they said that with the Presidency they would save 300 million pesos, which would be used to buy books. Afterwards, with the assembly, 450 would be saved. book Fair He always objected to these numbers and maintained that the stand would cost 80, not 300, assembled separately.
In a political nod, the space left by the Presidency was occupied by… the Province of Buenos Aires, which commands Axel Kiciloff. But where the Banco Nación was, there is now a cafe, with tables and everything. It looks strange among the books but that’s the market.
Meanwhile, the opening ceremony was being prepared, the space where every year – as editor Alejandro Katz told Infobae – “the publishing sector says things out loud to the political power”. Was La Libertad Avanza going to show its face? Were they going to expose themselves to whistles and posters like those faced by Pablo Avelluto, then head of Culture for the PRO? The Secretary Leonardo Cifelli He said yes and unofficially they commented that he was “prepared” to face a sector angry about things such as the suppression of the Fixed Price Law for books, the suspension of the purchase of 14 million educational books and various cuts in the area cultural.
He had reason to be cautious. Before the opening Alejandro Vaccaro -the president of the The Book Foundation, which organizes the Fair, had warned: “We are going to take all security measures, but we cannot prevent people from expressing their discontent with a government that has been strongly hostile to culture.” They were going to whistle at him, be warned. Cifelli He maintained that he was going, that he was going, that he was going… but in the end he got off.
On the same side it was Vaccaro with the presentation of the book Milei. On April 22, before the opening, he commented: “The truth is that I am surprised that the president Milei come present a book at the Fair.” Because his is, he said, “the most hostile government to culture that I remember.” In different media he repeated the idea: on the one hand he despises us, on the other he uses space.
So, what is known: at the inauguration there was no official representation, Vaccaro gave a harsh speech against the policies of Milei: “The true makers of this mega-event that is surpassed year after year – that is, the people, the readers who accompany us – observe with perplexity that the economic measures taken from the highest levels of the government, mercilessly drag them into a distant world, very far from the paradise that Borges imagined,” he said to start. He pointed out that the general loss of purchasing power would, of course, affect book sales. And he maintained that this year local production “will be very poor.” On the same side was the writer Liliana Heker and both were applauded. Then Vaccaro threw a chicanita. With a president there, security had to be taken care of: “There is no money,” he said. In the room they celebrated the joke.
Was it a great setting to present the book? Yes, because it was THE FAIR. And because Milei had already been on those stages in 2022 and 2023 and she had swept both years. “They are not just angry young people,” a colleague told this reporter in 2022, after walking through the line. She had seen families arriving from the suburbs, workers who had taken the train and bus to listen to him. Something deep was moving under those waters, the colleague realized with certainty.
Last year Milei He did his act in the largest room at the Fair. He was a candidate: what would he have to do now as President? Someone – they say Karina – thought big: the Central Court of La Rural. One detail: it is not part of the Fair, it is not what the Fair rents. It is there, but it is not used except -informally- to loosen the feet after long walks. They designed a show with giant screens, streaming, security, bathrooms. For six thousand people, they said in conversations with the Fair. Independent producers calculated the cost for Infobae: about $60,000, not counting the rental of the space, which was never talked about.
It would be the first time that a sitting President presented a book at the Fair. He would surpass the presentation of Sincerelythe book that Cristina Kirchner took to the Fair, with the then president of the El Libro Foundation, Teresa Carbano, sitting next to her on stage: was there a need for that proximity between the greatest authority of the Fair and a political figure as relevant as he was disruptive? A thousand people – all invited – in the room, many militants outside. That was what Cristina had done, a massive event, but an act of the Fair. What of Milei came for more.
As the Fair progressed, the details of the President’s presentation were adjusted. In principle, the El Libro Foundation would not be financially responsible for anything: between the Presidency, the Military House and a producer close to Karina Milei they would arrange everything. In low voices they were already slipping some concerns: the issue is who gets in, they said. Anyone should be able to participate with their ticket to the Fair, he said. They ask for a lot of free tickets, they said. The exhibitors had another fear: 6000 followers of Milei feverish, harangued? Wouldn’t there be problems later, wouldn’t security have to be provided, not for the President but for the exhibitors?
While this was being talked about in the hallways, the day of the appearance arrived at the book Fair of the other great figure of the last elections, Sergio Massa. It was April 27, but it didn’t go. It was said that the book was not finished. He hinted that he did not want the act to be small compared to the one he was preparing. Milei.
Runrún comes, runrún goes, the meetings continued and Milei’s presentation already seemed like a fact. Someone talked about that “iconic space”, the Pista de la Rural, where they whistled at Alfonsín. Others from that place “of animals and dressage”. It was a great stage, without a doubt, imposing, foundational. But on May 1, on the radio, the President let it be known that he had changed his mind. He did it his way, with the spiked caps: “It makes us suspect that there is an issue of sabotaging the presentation and doing it in the Kirchnerist style, in a violent way.“, said.
Vaccaro, for his part, told Infobae that the day before the Foundation had met with the Military House and the production of the event and they had agreed on everything. But, he clarified, they had asked for “5000 free tickets.” The Fair was willing to grant up to 200. Accounts: 5,000 tickets at 5,000 pesos is 25 million pesos. And the handle on who the guests are.
“Our intention was for the President to come to the Fair, to present his book, so that his supporters could share it with him, applaud him, cheer him and leave! in perfect harmony,” he says now, that everything has happened, Alejandro Vaccaro. “Unfortunately, for reasons unknown to us, he was suspended. The arguments that were given were really small nonsense: that we were Kirchneriststhat we were going to bring brave mobs from Nueva Chicago to sabotage the event… anyone with a minimum dose of intelligence knows that if we do that, we will be the first to be harmed, because the Fair is the family celebration.”
Indeed, voices have already appeared on the networks talking about the Fair as an area “co-opted by Kichnerism”: the President retweeted those ideas. “Will there be a time,” he asks Alejandro Vaccaro– When will they stop telling lies and false accusations? Will there be a limit or are they capable of anything? President Milei declined Infobae’s invitation to comment on these events.
Meanwhile, the book festival continues, the writers of Lisbon, the guest city, speak to the public and this Saturday the halls were flooded with visitors.
“So many books, so many ideas,” an 11-year-old grandson said to his grandmother, walking through the hallways. “How many people who thought things.”
That: ideas, voices that speak of antithetical views of the world. Descriptions of paradises that for others are hells. Next to each other. Noise, applause. Boos. “People I don’t like go to the Book Fair,” this chronicler wrote last year. There she said that people go that I don’t like but I like that they go, that’s democracy.
Someone pointed out these days that the Fair had remained at the same level of dialogue as the President. That Milei He had put her on an equal footing. Maybe you have reasons for doing that. Milei: the Fair It is not just a book sales place. It is that encounter, those ideas, that strength, that possibility of imagining better worlds. That unique call. The Fair It is more than its own officials, who may have one ideology or another. He is not a man: he is the strength of thousands of people who make books, those who imagine them, those who write them, those who illustrate them, those who print them. He is the strength of many more people who read them and live with them. That’s why the Fair You can argue with anyone, you have something to do.
