“El elogio oportuno” to Be Dedicated to Casa Editora Abril

The 45th anniversary of Casa Editora Abril will be the focus of El elogio oportuno, scheduled for September 11 at 3:00 p.m. at the Fayad Jamís Bookstore, located in Havana’s Historic Center.

The event, hosted by journalist and critic Fernando Rodríguez Sosa, will feature the participation of Yanet Cáceres Marero, commercial deputy director of Casa Editora Abril, along with journalists and writers Liudmila Peña Herrera and Ciro Bianchi Ross. The latter are authors of Mamá “Cuentalotodo” and La Habana de Hemingway y otras historias, both published by the editorial house and available for purchase at the gathering.

To mark four and a half decades of editorial work directed primarily at children and young readers, the program will also include Manuel Ramírez Heras and Osmany Romero, director and composer respectively of the five audiobooks based on José Martí’s La Edad de Oro. These productions were created by Casa Editora Abril in collaboration with RadioArte.

Attendees of El elogio oportuno will also have the opportunity to acquire new titles from Casa Editora Abril’s catalog, according to the Cuban Book Institute.

El elogio oportuno—designed to pay tribute to writers, books, historical events, and institutions marking major anniversaries—takes its name from a Martí aphorism: “timely praise fosters merit; and the lack of timely praise discourages it.” The phrase appeared in the pages of Patria newspaper in April 1892.

The event is sponsored by the Fayad Jamís Bookstore and the Roberto Fernández Retamar Martiano Club.