The new bookstore of the Mexican Economic Culture Fund (FCE) in Cuba, announced this Wednesday by its director, Paco Ignacio Taibo IIwill open its doors in the central corner of L and 27, in El Vedado, where the emblematic Fernando Ortiz bookstore is now located, as confirmed by this newspaper.
Taibo told the Spanish agency EFE that the bookstore will be inaugurated on April 30, at the end of the Havana Book Fair, of which Mexico is the guest country. It will bear the significant name of Tuxpan, the port of Veracruz from where the yacht sailed Granma, in which he clandestinely returned to Fidel Castro Island in 1956.
Neither the director of the FCE nor the Cuban authorities offered details of the exact location of the new bookstore, but 14ymedio confirmed with an employee of the place that it is actually a renovation and change of name of the Fernando Ortiz bookstore, located a few meters from the university steps and close to the Habana Libre hotel.
The employee of the new premises added that the opening to the public is planned “for the month of May”, although Taibo assured that it will be next Saturday, April 30
Until now, the place bore the name of an ethnologist, anthropologist, jurist, archaeologist and journalist, from whose studies an extensive bibliography emerged, including classics such as Cuban Counterpoint of the snuff and the sugar (1940) and The curro blacks (1975). All of them, essential volumes to approach the national identity.
The employee of the new premises added that the opening to the public is planned “for the month of May”, although Taibo assured that it will be next Saturday, April 30. Both outside and inside the building, the traces of an important economic investment stand out.
The exterior windows that cover part of L and 27th streets now have metal security doors, probably designed to counteract the fury of hurricanes but also to protect against the stone attacks that some official businesses often provoke. This Wednesday the interior furniture was still missing.
With the facade recently painted in gray and blue, the bookstore called the attention of passers-by this afternoon, accustomed to the fact that only hotels seem to grow in plants or be renovated in a city in the midst of crisis.
Meanwhile, several kilometers away, in Old Havana, the most famous Cuban bookstore, La Moderna Poesía, deteriorates after years of being closed to the public, before the eyes of passers-by and the apathy of officials. Through the windows you can see a dark landscape, full of residue from the old furniture and fragments that have fallen from the ceiling.
Through a broken glass, you can see a destroyed area, without a false ceiling, without lamps, with hanging electrical cables and some columns damaged by water leaks from the upper floor that the building suffered for years, according to testimonies collected by this newspaper between the neighbors and merchants of the corner of Obispo and Bernaza.
La Moderna Poesía was founded in 1890 by the Galician immigrant José pot López Rodríguez and initially also had a printing press and an engraving workshop. In 1939 the heir to Pote concluded a reform that turned the premises into a beautiful building art deco with two floors and a decorated sidewalk.
It thus became a national synonym for literature, stationery and office supplies. In 1960, shortly after Fidel Castro came to power, it was nationalized and spent decades providing bookstore service to the public but deteriorating due to lack of repairs. Until, at the end of the last century, a capital repair restored part of its former splendor.
However, after that reform, the store began to sell only in convertible pesos, which was subject to strong criticism from customers. Then came another long period in which La Moderna Poesía languished due to the lack of offers for new books, the ideological excesses of its catalog and the deterioration of its infrastructure.
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