The annual book fair, held in Mexico’s second-largest city, is a major event in the Americas, attracting prominent writers and other cultural figures. It is a major gathering point for booksellers, distributors, publishers, and librarians from many countries, including the United States and Canada. This year some 1,300 publishing houses from more than 30 countries took part in the event, bringing more than 80,000 titles (an earlier article reporting on this year’s book fair appeared in the December 16 issue).  
 
Fair coincides with student conference
One of the features of this year’s event was the fact that it overlapped with the 13th congress of the Continental Organization of Latin American and Caribbean Students (OCLAE), which drew nearly 1,200 youth from across the Americas. The meeting focused on the social catastrophe facing millions in Latin America and the Caribbean and how to address this crisis in the interests of working people.

On December 1, hundreds of youth attending the OCLAE congress visited the book fair, injecting it with an added youthful and political element.

This year the honored country was Cuba. Throughout the 10-day event, Cuba’s large pavilion was packed with visitors. It featured a range of books from Cuban publishers.

Some 90 fair events were organized with Cuban participants, including book presentations, panels, and workshops. Among the prominent Cuban novelists, poets, writers, and performers who joined in these activities were Miguel Barnet, Antón Arrufat, Nancy Morejón, Roberto Fernández Retamar, Cintio Vitier, and Alicia Alonso. On the opening day of the fair, poet and essayist Vitier received the Juan Rulfo prize, a prestigious Latin American literary award that is given out each year during the book fair.

A panel featuring Cuban poet Norberto Codina also included Cubans who are partisans of the revolution but live outside the country. Codina is the editor of La Gaceta de Cuba, the magazine of the Union of Writers and Artists of Cuba (UNEAC).

Also attracting attention and receiving prominent press coverage were presentations by Fidel Castro Díaz-Balart on the scientific accomplishments of the Cuban Revolution and by Eusebio Leal on the effort to restore and preserve the architecture of Old Havana.

Cuba also had a large presence of well-known musicians and dancers, from veteran singer Compay Segundo to the Cuban National Ballet. A December 1 exchange by singer Silvio Rodríguez with fair visitors drew an audience of 2,500.

Opponents of the Cuban Revolution campaigned throughout the fair to slander the revolution and to distract attention away from its cultural accomplishments. Their efforts were largely unsuccessful.

On December 1, as part of an official fair program, a panel was organized of individuals associated with Letras Libres, a publication opposed to the Cuban Revolution that is financed in part by the Mexican government. The issue of Letras Libres produced prior the book fair was devoted to the topic of "the dictatorship" and concentrated on various scenarios for the overthrow of the revolution following the death of President Fidel Castro. The panelists were Roger Bartra, Rafael Rojas, Christopher Domínguez, and José Manuel Prieto, all opponents of the revolution who operate in academic circles.

Among those packing the meeting room where this event was held were activists from the Mexican movement in solidarity with Cuba, as well as some youth, including from Cuba who attending the OCLAE congress.

After the four speakers finished their presentations, numerous audience members took the microphone at the front and began to denounce the panelists. They were called traitors to Cuba, funded by the CIA. Chants of "Cuba sí, yanqui no" erupted on several occasions.

Notable in contrast were remarks during the discussion by Eliades Acosta, director of the José Martí National Library in Havana, who calmly defended the Cuban Revolution. "Ours is a revolution that does not curtail anything," said Acosta, responding to charges that artistic expression is restricted on the island.

At the meeting Acosta handed out a statement condemning the provocation staged by backers of Letras Libres. It said, "This issue of Letras Libres is out of sync with the cultured, revolutionary, and rebel spirit of the Cuban people."  
 
Anti-Cuba campaign in media
This event was followed the next few days by a virulent campaign against Cuba in the daily papers here. Enrique Krause, editor of Letras Libres, issued a statement saying the book fair organizers had been kidnapped by the Cuban government.

A column by Mexican writer Gabriel Zaid accused supporters of the revolution of "low-intensity terrorism" against artists in Cuba, echoing a theme raised in the panel presentations. Also widely printed was a statement issued December 4 by right-wing Peruvian novelist Mario Vargas Llosa and 27 other academic figures asserting that the "totalitarian practices of Castro have stained a prestigious Latin America cultural event."

The leadership of the Cuban delegation answered the slander campaign. Abel Prieto, Cuba’s Minister of Culture, noted that Letras Libres was produced in order to attack Cuba, not for literary thought.

Iroel Sánchez, president of the Cuban Book Institute, said in a December 3 statement that Cuba "did not come to the book fair to carry out political propaganda." He said "none of our panels, panel discussions, tributes, and literary presentations were of this character."

Opponents of the Cuban revolution used the media hue and cry as the buildup to a second official presentation on December 5 by backers of Encuentro de la cultura cubana, an anti-Cuban Revolution magazine published in Spain. This event took place without any incidents.

In an interview with the Mexico City daily La Jornada, Fernando Rojas, national director of Cuba’s Community Cultural Institute, said Encuentro is not independent but had received grants from the National Endowment for Democracy, created in the 1980s as a wing of the U.S.Information Agency.

Simultaneously, the Café Literario that was part of the Cuban pavilion hosted an exchange between fair visitors and Silvio Rodríguez, Cintio Vitier, Eusebio Leal, and Roberto Fernández Retamar. As part of this discussion, a statement was issued in the name of several prominent Cuban artists thanking the city of Guadalajara and the organizers of the book fair for allowing this opportunity for Cuban artists to be on display, and for the outpouring of solidarity the Cuban delegation had received during the book fair from many people in Guadalajara.

Fair organizers held a news conference on the final day to salute the Cuban participation and to announce that Quebec will be honored at the 2003 book fair.

Luis Madrid contributed to this article.  
 
 
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