With more than a thousand new publications and around three million physical texts, the XXXII Havana International Book Fair (HIBF) will arrive on February 15-25.

This was announced today, at a press conference, by Juan Rodríguez, president of the Cuban Book Institute (CBI) and president of the Organizing Committee of the event, who stressed that the event will be dedicated to two great personalities of literature in the greatest of Antilles: Isabel Monal and Francisco López Sacha.

Under the maxim that "Reading is building identity", the fair will show the efforts of the National Reading Program to reach schools and communities, and the institutional desire to extend the value of books, their promotion and the collective right to have a broader culture, said Rodríguez.

Christian Vargas, ambassador of the Federative Republic of Brazil in Cuba - guest of honor country -, highlighted that the Book Fair will have a special meaning, because it marks an important point in the relations of both peoples through culture.

In this regard, Vargas commented that about 30 Brazilian writers will arrive in Cuba to participate in this festival of letters, among them Concepción Evaristo, Frei Betto, and Jeferson Tenório, led by Margareth Menezes, Minister of Culture of Brazil, as well as comic book creators and promoters of Cuban literature in the South American giant.

He specified that from that country nearly six thousand books will arrive in Spanish on topics such as Social and Political Sciences and for children, and donations will be made to academies, educational centers and the population.

Josué Pérez, coordinator of the Fair’s Literary Program, announced that the capital will have its usual headquarters in San Carlos de la Cabaña Fortress and with 16 sub-headquarters, which will include the Juan Marinello Cuban Research Institute, the New Latin American Cinema Foundation with its Glauber Rocha Room, the National Museum of Music and the José Marti Memorial.

The Fair, Pérez explained, will have an extensive program of literary and artistic presentations of popular music, harmonica and the typical Brazilian cholo, while from Cinema 23 y 12 a sample of the seventh art of that Southern American country will be exhibited.

He said that the Afro-descendant Literary Forum will take place, dedicated to the anthropologist and writer Natalia Bolívar (1934-2023) and the poet Nancy Morejón.

In addition, the Second Editorial Business Forum, the II Policy Meeting in favor of Reading and the Cuba Digital Project panel will also be held.

The literary coordinator of the Book Fair commented that within the framework of the event the National Prize for Literature will be awarded to María Elena Llana, the Prize for Publishing to Enrique Pérez Díaz, the Prize for Social and Humanistic Sciences to Jesús Guanche, as well as the Calendar Awards of Hermanos Saíz Association and the Golden Age contest, the highest award given by the CIB to literary creation for children.

The XXXII International Book Fair will extend to the rest of the provinces of western Cuba from March 6-10, in the center it will be from March 13-17 of that month and will reach the eastern of the island from March 20-24.

Translated by Amilkal Labañino / CubaSí Translation Staff