Vol. 73/No. 48      December 14, 2009

The fair featured more than 400 forums, book presentations, conferences, concerts, movies, and educational activities.

“Books about history and politics are the most sold, according to the daily surveys,” said Héctor Soto, Venezuela’s minister of culture, at the closing of the fair. “Something is happening with people, that is making them buy books about history and politics,” he said.

An indication of the interest referred to by Soto was the many discussions between visitors and volunteers at the Pathfinder Press stand. A total of 417 copies of New International, a magazine of Marxist politics and theory, were sold in Spanish and English. They featured the articles “Capitalism’s Long Hot Winter Has Begun”; “Imperialism’s March toward Fascism and War”; and “Revolution, Internationalism, and Socialism: The Last Year of Malcolm X.”

Participants in the fair also bought dozens of copies of the Spanish edition of The First and Second Declarations of Havana, The Communist Manifesto, The Working Class and the Transformation of Learning, and Is Socialist Revolution in the U.S. Possible?

Some of the visitors to the Pathfinder stand, who knew the publishing house from previous fairs, were particularly interested in discussing the course undertaken by the new U.S. administration.

Many who held illusions in then recently elected President Barack Obama wanted to discuss the extension of the war in Afghanistan and Pakistan, the so-called health-care reform proposals, and the incapacity of the U.S. government to turn around the deepening economic crisis despite billions poured into capitalist institutions, among other issues.

Effects of world capitalist crisis
During the fair, the Central Bank of Venezuela (BCV) reported that the country’s economy had contracted by 4.5 percent in the third quarter, officially putting Venezuela in an economic recession.

The BCV reported that oil revenues dropped by 9.5 percent this last period dragging along other sectors of the economy. Manufacturing shrank by 9.2 percent; mining by 18.3 percent; transportation by 11.1 percent; and retail sales, 11.5 percent, according to the central bank.

Many of the fair’s visitors pointed to the rampant inflation, annualized at 29 percent, which eats up the income of workers and retirees. Some blamed the big capitalist corporations who have control of food production and distribution.

Example of the Cuban Revolution
The fair was dedicated this year to Bolivia, as the honored country, and José Luis Briceño Guerrero, the honored Venezuelan writer. It also paid tribute to Haydée Santamaría, and the 50th anniversary of the Cuban publishing house Casa de las Américas.

Santamaría was a founder of Casa de las Américas when it was created a few months after the January 1959 revolutionary victory against the U.S.-backed dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista.

Santamaría also took part in the 1953 assault on the Moncada barracks, which opened the revolutionary struggle led by the July 26 Movement and Rebel Army under the leadership of Fidel Castro. She later also undertook extensive responsibilities in the revolutionary war.

“Casa de las Américas was a cultural project that went from intentions to actions,” said Roberto Zurbano, director of Casa de las Américas publishing collection, at a program during the fair hosted by the ALBA Cultural Fund. He highlighted that along with Casa de las Américas, the new government established the national film institute, the national ballet, and the national printshop, among the first institutions created by the Cuban Revolution.

Joining Zurbano on the panel were the well-known Venezuelan writers Laura Antillano and Humberto Mata, both of whom have served as jurors in the prestigious literary contest organized by Casa de las Américas every year for writers from across Latin America and the Caribbean.

Another highlight of the book fair was the presentation of the documentary Saharawi, Africa’s Last Colony directed by Carlos Azpúrua. The film documents the struggle by the people of Western Sahara against foreign domination of their land. A former colony of Spain, the country, located in northwestern Africa, continues to be occupied by Morocco, with the support of French and U.S. imperialism.

Michell Bonnefoy, vice president of the National Book Center, said that in addition to the 80,000 visitors to the Caracas chapter of the fair, some 60,000 others visited the fair during its stops in other cities.

He called special attention to the thousands of visitors to the Children’s Pavilion, and the Librerías del Sur (Bookstores of the South) stand where 4,000 people purchased books, taking advantage of the low prices offered by the Venezuelan publishing house El Perro y la Rana.  
 
 
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