The Havana International Book Fair The first stage of its XXXI edition concluded this Sunday with more than 700,000 copies sold, as reported by its managers from the San Carlos de la Cabaña fortress, its main headquarters.
Juan Rodríguez Cabrera, president of the Cuban Book Institute (ICL) and the Organizing Committee announced that more than 700,000 books were sold and that around 400,000 people attended the different venues, according to a report on the official website. CubaDebate.
During the closing ceremony, Rodríguez Cabrera announced that Cuban books had an average price of 17 pesos, “as a sign of the willingness” to continue subsidizing editorial production.
The official highlighted the work of the Cubadigital cultural project, which in its fifth edition is consolidated as a way for the use of new technologies and pointed out that for the first time each stand had offers of printed and digital books.
In summary, 411 representatives from 54 countries participated, 19 more than in the 2022 edition and more than two thousand actions were carried out, among which its organizers include presentations of more than 400 titles, literary award ceremonies, concerts, exhibitions, performances on stage and cinematographic projections.
With the end of the capital stage, the Book Fair will reach all the provinces, in a tour that extends until March 19, when it will close from Santiago de Cuba.
Rodríguez Cabrera highlighted the Colombian participation“with a broad artistic-literary program that will be marked as a significant moment in relations between the two countries.”
Ángela Beltrán, director of Arts of the Ministry of Culture of Colombia, expressed the honor that it represented to participate in the fair together with around 20 writers from that South American nation.
Beltrán also highlighted that the Fair reaffirms the need to promote work in the path of letters, and expressed his intention to share with Cuba other cultural spaces focused on other branches of art such as cinema and the audiovisual world.
During the closure, the Organizing Committee recognized the organizational and design effort of the stands of the Group of 77+ China, the French Alliance of Cuba and the Editorial Mayor General Ignacio Agramonte y Loynaz.
He also gave recognition to the cultural projects Pinar del Río, Nuestra Historia, Venezuela, Patria Libre, Tesoro de Papel Children’s Pavilion, the Professional Book Fair, Cubadigital, and the Great Bookstore of the National Book Distributor, according to information CubaDebate.
The publishing houses Letras Cubanas and Nuevo Milenio, the Colombian delegation and the government of Havana were awarded for their work in the materialization of the event.
At the closing of the closing ceremony, the Organizing Committee extended the invitation to participate in the XXXII Havana International Book Fair, which will take place in February 2024.
