33rd Book Fair in Matanzas: a whole country in books (I).

More than three thousand titles, with nearly 18 thousand copies, including 21 novelties from local publishers, will be marketed in the Matanzas chapter of the 33rd Book Fair, from today until next March 9th, as announced by Efrain Perez Izquierdo, director of the provincial Center of Book and Literature.

«I have to honestly say that there are many titles that are not novelties, because they belong to our inventories. The polygraphic production of the country is very resentful from the availability of resources.

«Matanzas has 21 new books. This does not happen in other provinces that have been able to produce very few or no novelties. Adding what Aldabón, Ediciones Matanzas and Vigía bring, we have 21 titles that are literary novelties for this occasion».

Although these quantities are meager compared to previous editions, it is worth highlighting the efforts of those who have joined the coordination of the largest literary event in the country, as well as the increase of digital proposals, no longer as an alternative to the poor production of printed books, but as an opportunity to promote reading in another format, with wide benefits, said the director.

«We have more than three million books available free of charge to readers. Agustina Ponce, in Vigía, gave us a space for the digital book to be located there».

The publishing houses Aldabón, Vigía and Matanzas are ready for this edition of the Fair, which in 2025 is dedicated to the researcher and professor Francisca López Civeira and the poet, essayist, researcher and literary critic Virgilio López Lemus.

«I am very happy. The year 2025 is very important for me, since from the beginning of the Fair in the capital until arriving in Santiago de Cuba I will tour the event through all the provinces of the country.

«That encourages me and creates an extraordinary responsibility for me. One has to try to look good all the time with the readers and with the work one has presented. I am fully satisfied with the books of my authorship that have been published for the occasion».

During the days of the Fair, prestigious personalities will visit the city, among them the Ecuadorian writer Luis Franco, as well as the Cubans Aristides Vega, Charo Guerra, Laidi Fernandez de Juan, Lidia Meriño, Luis Lorente, Waldo Leyva and Zaida Capote.

During the biggest literary festival in Cuba’s Athens, writers and readers will praise Ediciones Vigía on its 40th anniversary, as well as the work of playwright, storyteller, researcher, promoter and theater critic Ulises Rodríguez Febles, said Pérez Izquierdo.

«We have been declaring an institution and an author for five years now. It is an honor for the Organizing Committee that Ulises is the author to whom the fair is dedicated this 2025.

«But it is dedicated as an institution to  Vigía Editionsd, 40 years after the first issue of a publishing house that enjoys worldwide prestige was published. Its aesthetics of the art book, sustained over time, was born precisely when there was nothing, as an alternative to look for any object that could become a work of art».

The event has the Republic of South Africa as guest of honor and its theme is A whole country in books, to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the creation of the Territorial Publishing System. It is also dedicated to the 130th anniversary of the fall in combat of Cuba’s National Hero, José Martí.

The Provincial Book and Literature Center is planning colloquiums, panels, talks and round tables as part of the 33rd Matanzas 2025 Book Fair.

«The central program of the event always takes place at the Palacio de Junco Museum because they are the main colloquiums of the fair and Ediciones Matanzas has an important presence of books at UNEAC,» the director of the provincial Book and Literature Center also explained.

Several sites in the historic center will host the central activities of the event as the Junco Palace, with the main panels, the Office of the Curator, with the Children’s Pavilion and Editorial Caminos and the social house of the UNEAC, with reading classrooms in the mornings and its usual Como ángel cierto and El sombrero de Zequeira in the evening hours.

The fairground will be located in the cultural promenade of Narváez, «in complicity there with the artists of the plastic arts. That’s how we did it since the first time and that has been maintained over time. But this great event is a look towards the city that commits us all, that is to say, that the matancera society, the forms of management are in function of the fair.

«To this we must add the presence of five foreign exhibitors who will accompany us, which expands the offer. We have also invited the Bank and ETECSA. It is, undoubtedly, a fair that brings together Matanzas’ society and organizations,» he added.

Ediciones Vigía will offer a remarkable program, although they have reserved some of their novelties for the Festival they will dedicate in April to the 40th anniversary of the emblematic publishing house, said Agustina Ponce, director of the institution based in the city’s foundational square.

«We will begin today, April 6th, at 11:00 a.m., with readings by the winners of the America Bobia in 2024 contest, the poet Juventina Soler, Loreley Rebull and Eliseo Abreu, who deserved mentions. That same day, at 2:00 in the afternoon, Albatros de Baudelaire, by Ronel Gonzalez, will be presented.

«On the 7th, at 10:00 a.m., we will be doing the homage to Ulises in Vigía and at 2:00 p.m. a colloquium dedicated to our publishing house will take place to which we invited people who have been very close to Vigía during these 40 years.

«On the 8th we will dedicate the morning to women and on the 9th we will close in the morning with a workshop for children.».

Other sites of presentation and commercialization of the books will be the Casa de la Memoria Escénica, the Historical Archive, the social house of the UNHIC, the room El Peregrino, located in the Galería Taller de Mederos and the Sala de Conciertos José White, where will occur, the nights of today and Saturday, the usual Café mezcla’os, as well as the space San Juan murmurante.

Also with attractive proposals, Ediciones Aldabón will offer its presentations at the Parque de los Chivos. «Today Thursday at 10:00 a.m. we will have a cinema space, with the presentation of the comic book and exhibitions, the work of Juan Padrón, and the animated short film Ogún, the Penitent, by Carlos Daniel Hernández León.

«At 3:00 in the afternoon we will always have La hora de Aldabón, where we will show the literary novelties along with some recently published books, among them Los dos príncipes, by María Laura Germán; Cuentos de viejos, by María Elena Llana, while at 4:00 we will always have a reading of Los grafómanos. At 5:00, the peña of peasant music with Orismay and Kiko and at 8:00 a jazz concert with The Heat Transfer group.

«For Friday, at 3:00 in the afternoon, at La hora de Aldabón, we will present Una bala no puede matar el infinito, which is the intellectual biography of Haydée Santamaría. At 5:00 will take place the rumba academy and at 8:00 a concert with troubadour Manuel Leandro.

«On Saturday we have reserved, at 10:00 in the morning, the presentation of the Eliecer Lazo award. We will present Cables de alta tensión and Conteo regresivo, which is an anthology of Tunero poets. At 3:00 in the afternoon, at La hora de Aldabón, we will present the Calendar awards», said Daniel Cruz Bermúdez, coordinator of the publishing house of the Saiz Brothers Association in Matanzas, who added that the Aldabón activities will close on Saturday night with a concert by the Failde Orchestra.

Among the proposals of Ediciones Matanzas are Los dioses escribieron. Three South African poets, selection by Leymen Perez and translation by Israel Dominguez; Slavic Songs, by Jesus Lozada; The Dead Word, by Lidia Meriño and Eggs, by Ulises Rodriguez Febles.

The actions of the Fair will be extended to the Vocational School of Art, the José Luis Dubrocq Pre-University, educational centers in different neighborhoods of Matanzas, the galleries El Retablo and Pedro Esquerré and the theaters, explained Efrain Perez Izquierdo.

«The book is only the pretext, because the Book Fair is joined by all the manifestations of art, from theater, dance, music, and the plastic arts.

«The book now serves as the center, but we have multiplied in the rest of the institutions so that the population enjoys an event that transcends culture, because it has a high connotation.»

Visual arts exhibitions, concerts and theatrical presentations will merge with literature to offer a complete and quality cultural program, in charge of the artists of the territory during the celebration of the Book Fair in Matanzas, from today until next Sunday, March 9.

This year in Matanzas, in addition to highlighting the significance of an emblematic publishing house like Vigía, it extols the work of Ulises Rodríguez Febles. «I must thank those who have made it possible for me to be selected as the author to whom the Fair is dedicated for the affection they have put, institutions, people and press media, the publishing houses, the people for whom one writes.

«I thank those who have made the effort to get the books. For me it is very important. Sometimes you think that what you think about is feeding your ego, but for me what is really important is that somehow your characters and your stories, your books, will have visibility.

«Writing alone for the stage has a function of communicating certain ideas, certain values, certain cases that one has lived and that is the possibility for that to reach many more people.

«The fact that Vigía is dedicating a moment to me is fundamental, first of all because we are celebrating this Fair along with its 40 years, which was where I first published and where our generation and many others found a home to publish, to read, to meet.»

After the opening of a special exhibition dedicated to the storyteller, playwright, archivist, art critic and cultural promoter, the Junco Palace Museum will host today, from 9:30 a.m., a tribute colloquium with the participation of Osvaldo Cano, Vivian Martínez Tabares, Carlos Zamora, Rubén Darío Salazar and Alfredo Zaldívar Muñoa, and the presentation of the book Huevos, published for the first time as an independent text.

«My most important work, at least the most published, the most premiered, the most studied, the most translated, but which had never been published as an independent book.

«This is a book of documents because I, as an archivist at last, defend the idea that the book in the theater has to have its history. In this case Huevos has everything it carries: the chronology of its stagings, the times it has been premiered, the times it has been read, the times it has been published, it has annexes of the critics and photographs of at least two stagings.»

On Friday 7th, an exhibition of books by Rodriguez Febles published by Vigia will be inaugurated at the Education Information Center, while in the afternoon the Matanzas Events and Propaganda Directorate will host a tribute meeting with the author of El señor de las tijeras and the presentation of Cuarentena, by  Matanzas Editions.

«And we are going to have on the 8th in the afternoon the presentation of Béisbol, a book that Vigía published at the time and that is going to be released digitally by Cuba Literaria.

«That afternoon at the Casa de la Memoria Escénica will have the novelty of a museum exhibition with most of the books on sports that I have done, objects dedicated to baseball, the reading of a small fragment of the work by actors from Icarón and a literary sports presentation.»

However, Ediciones Aldabón will soon publish La doncella errante y otros monólogos para actrices and a reprint of El señor de las tijeras, texts that could not be finished for this edition of the Book Fair.

From today and for four days, reading lovers will invade the Narváez promenade, the main streets, squares and cultural institutions of the historic center to take home the best of Cuban and foreign literature or enjoy a moment of culture and good art.

«This year we are dedicating a space to ANCI, which will be with a very specialized literature group. They will be selling books in Braille at the Taller de Mederos Gallery. I think this is a novelty that favors other audiences. There, where the El peregrino room will be, there will also be the presentation of books on sports and cooking.

«The authors from Matanzas, published in local publishing houses or not, will visit Matanzas during these days. We went out to look for books by authors from the municipalities that have been published anywhere in the country and we will exhibit five of them. There is one by Carlos Ethiel Gómez, from Jagüey; Yan, from Jovellanos; the book by Leymen (Pérez), which was published in Havana and Mexico; one by Luis Alexander Pita; the one by Raúl Piad that deserved the La Edad de Oro Award and one by Mireya Cabrera Galán.

«We are going to promote a party, a work that is built by all of us, inviting the people of Matanzas to come and enjoy. Welcome to the 33rd Matanzas International Book Fair».

The International Book Fair is the most transcendental event of the Cuban publishing movement since 1982. More than a space to acquire books and exchange with authors, it has become a stage to show, in its various facets, the dynamism of our cultural life, as a space for dialogue between the literatures of Latin America, Europe and other cultures that usually participate in the event.

The celebration of the event is every year a cultural celebration, in which reading lovers have options of diverse themes and genres for audiences of all ages and collateral activities.

The Book Fair is recognized as a reference for the exhibition, commercialization and promotion of the best Cuban, Latin American and universal literature, in addition to becoming every year an expression of Cuban culture.

Written by Jessica Mesa.