Luis Angel Muñoz Zuñiga
Western Daily Special
Book fairs differ from others, because while some are street cultural spectacles, when it comes to books, a small city is created within the urban district perimeter.
During the Cali International Book Fair FILCALI, in the space of Bulevar del Río and on the Ortiz Bridge, the bookstores are installed in their tents, with shelves, tables and rooms to congregate Cali people, until making them feel part of the “ City of books”, where the public comes to acquire bibliographic products.
Authors talk face to face with their readers and editors compete in frank competition with other releases.
At the fairs, promotions are offered and readers are tempted by the books that they will browse and leaf through at the stands, which will seduce them by offering to be taken to their homes where they hope to enrich the libraries.
At the end of FILCALI, statistics will show the number of visitors and sales income.
FILCALI is so well positioned that the new events of the “City of Books” will be reported on the front page in the printed newspapers and will be the main news to open the television news.
In homage to FILCALI, Diario Occidente reports the history and social, economic, editorial and cultural importance of book fairs in Colombia.
Brushstrokes of history
Some hints of history about book fairs can be traced back to the Roman Empire and, similar to other social aspects that perished with the fall of the empire and were reborn centuries later, we can point out that in the 15th century in Europe, with the invention of the printing press of Gutenberg, a dynamic of the publishing industry was forged and there was a renaissance of the book market, giving rise to the resurgence of fairs, appearing as pioneer cities of modern international fairs: Lyon in France, Medina del Campo in Spain, Frankfurt and Leipzig in Germany.
International book fairs strengthened bookstore demand and the publishing industry.
Today, contrary to the apocalyptic preachers who announce that the internet and platforms will replace physical book publications, extinguishing its few readers; We observed that during the international fair, the public enthusiastically responded to the invitation, filling the spaces and acquiring the new titles to place them in their libraries.
The contact with readers that allows them to touch the pages and smell the ink that represents the blood that gave them life with their written words, will never be replaced by a cold relationship between humans and the new and sophisticated editions that they offer in “comfortable” virtual platforms.
A budding industry
In the Colony there was a royal public library in Santa Fe de Bogotá, run by Manuel del Socorro Rodríguez, created as a viceregal policy due to Creole pressure that interceded before the Royal Court requesting their cultural rights in New Granada.
The Creoles formed their private libraries by importing books, this was the case of Antonio Nariño, whose copies came from France.
At the beginning of the Republic, families donated books to form the libraries of the first public schools, for example, Santa Librada de Cali, which since its foundation in 1823, had shelves full of ancient books donated or expropriated from the monasteries.
The Zipaquirá Lyceum also distinguished itself by offering its students one of the most complete libraries in the country, which had books on art, science and works of universal literature.
At the beginning of the 20th century, the existence of a publishing industry still cannot be attributed, because there were hardly any typographic workshops where only newspapers and magazines were published.
However, these fonts published some books with a paperback presentation, through print runs of few copies, published at the request of their own authors.
These were the cases of “María” (1867) by Jorge Isaac, “El Alférez Real” (1886) by Eustaquio Palacios and “La Vorágine” (1924) by José Eustasio Rivera.
First fair in Colombia
Jorge Eliecer Gaitán was not only a political figure, an important leader who, as a young man, denounced in the Congress of the Republic the genocide committed by the army against the Ciénaga strikers and an authentic leader who represented the popular wing of the Liberal Party, assassinated on September 9. April 1948.
When he was Mayor of Bogotá in 1936, he was distinguished by his eccentricities, among others, his decision to dress motorists in overalls, ordering that the facades of houses be painted with pastel colors to highlight the red and blue that provoked partisan hatred. and, having organized classical music concerts in the bullring.
But his administrative act, perhaps the most important, in his short eight-month Mayor’s Office, was precisely that he organized the first book fair in Colombia.
The Mayor of Bogotá summoned the first booksellers, authorizing them to install kiosks in Plaza Santander and at the railway station, to train more readers by lowering the prices of books.
Although his project was made invisible by the mainstream press and its political opponents, it represented the seed that would spread to other cities that supported it and that in less than a century would be the Bogotá International Book Fair FILBO.
FILCALI 2023
Naples, this year is the invited city to the Cali International Book Fair, whose programming extends until October 22.
Different daily activities were scheduled, among others, workshops on the problem of art in school; conversations with Santiago Gamboa and other writers who present his most recent works; Pacific Poetry recitals by Lucrecia Panchano; talks about the Huertas de La Paz by the National Center for Historical Memory; exhibition of the Photographic Archive and Historical Memory of Cali.
In addition, all activities receive the support of the District Education Secretariat and the Library Network.