Quito, June 19 (EFE).- The 2024 Quito International Book Fair (FILQ), which had Colombia as the guest of honor, consolidated itself as one of the cultural events of the year in Ecuador, by closing with the attendance of more than 60,000 visitors and the participation of prominent international writers from Latin America.
“More than 60,000 people came across a book that could change their lives. If you bought a book, don’t leave it on the nightstand, read it,” said the mayor of Quito, Pabel Muñoz, at the conclusion of the fair.
Between June 8 and 16 and under the motto ‘Cruce de Caminos’, the literary contest of the Ecuadorian capital brought together at the Metropolitan Convention Center nearly 180 authors and people linked to Ecuador’s publishing industry, of them 80 from Latin American countries such as the Peruvian Gabriela Wiener, the Uruguayan Fernanda Trías, the Colombian Piedad Bonnett and the Mexican Mario Bellatín.
It also had more than a hundred exhibitors including publishers and bookstores and some 300 cultural activities, focused on promoting the diversity of ideas and creativity, as well as a space for meeting, debate and reflection on the present and the future through the book pages.
Among the activities held, a tribute to the centenary of the publication of ‘La Vorágine’, by Colombian José Eustasio Rivera, stood out, a work that is recognized as a classic of Latin American literature.
Another of the highlights was a poetry recital with the Colombian Piedad Bonnett, who arrived in the country shortly after being declared the winner of the Reina Sofía Prize for Literature.
Bonnett shared with the public the reading of some of his poems such as ‘The Students’, ‘Vigilante’, ‘The Suitcase’ and an unpublished text called ‘A bigger splash’.
The Quito Book Fair also paid tribute to the Quito writer Abdón Ubidia and the academic and researcher Alejandro Moreano.
Tribute was paid to Ubidia for his extensive career in the world of letters, whose novels and stories have circulated in Ecuador since the 1960s and revolve around various themes, including life in the capital, Quito.
Right there, ‘From the Other Heart’, the new book of stories by Ubidia, was presented, who in 2012 was awarded the Eugenio Espejo national award, the highest award in Ecuadorian arts.
Moreano was also feted as one of Ecuador’s three most important contemporary thinkers along with Agustín Cueva and Bolívar Echeverría.
From Spain came the versatile writer Carlos Pardo, who was a bookseller for more than ten years, cultural manager and literary critic of the cultural supplement Babelia, of the Spanish newspaper El País.
Pardo moderated a discussion titled ‘Blind Poetry’, in which the Venezuelan writer and editor Ígor Barreto and the Peruvian poet Mario Montalbetti participated, and participated in another meeting called ‘Exilios’ together with the Ecuadorian writers Leonardo Valencia and Juana Neira.
For her part, the Argentine writer Gabriela Cabezón brought to FILQ the novel ‘The Girls of the Naranjel’, where she delves into the Paraná jungle and recreates the life of the Spanish Catalina de Erauso, who in the 17th century fled from the convent where she She was a novice and dressed as a man she joined the conquest of America.
At the contest, which EFE reports as part of a collaboration agreement, the audiobook project ‘Women in the Ear’ was also present, which seeks to make visible “the literature of women currently writing in Ecuador,” as well as to put an end to the barriers to dissemination of culture.
This project began in 2020 and already has forty writers in its repository, while it will soon also include works in indigenous languages such as Tsáfiki, Kichwa and Shuar.
The FILQ is the most important international event of this type in Quito with the aim of contributing to the economic reactivation of the artistic and cultural sectors and also becoming one of the main events in Latin America that attracts international tourists to the city. EFE
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