By Julie Pacotte
The 34th edition of the International Book Festival of Buenos Aires was inaugurated on April the 24th and continued until May the 12th, under the theme “El espacio del lector” (The reader’s space) and counting with the participation of about 1600 expositors. It is considered as the “most important festival of Latin America, one scale above those of Guadalajara and Bogotá”.
When I arrived in the festival, nothing special surprised me, as it seems a lot like other festivals that take place in a big city. The decoration and all the colours were very beautiful, a delight for the eyes. What most appeals to me when I entered into the yellow pavilion (it’s like this, the festival was divided in multiples pavilions of different colours) was the presence of a lot of countries: Mexico, Paraguay, United States, Brazil…. In this way it seems to me more as a tourism festival than a book festival. Furthermore, talking about the country’s stands, there are some things that I didn’t “catch”, as the presence of a kind of space rocket for USA or the promotion of tourism in Patagonia or Brazil. So, there were some stands for worldwide organisations as the United Nations or organisations for the environment protection, in those cases I imagine that their presence in the festival was more to promote their organisation and incentive people to give money for donations, in exchange of a book, than to promote general reading. For me the presence of such organisations is important in order to remember that reading doesn’t only represent a hobby but also a way for learning and for being aware of what happens in the world.
The main attraction of this festival was clearly to find books that you can’t buy in other places or to buy them cheaper; maybe there were a lot of books that you can’t find in libraries… no matter what, the Book Festival keeps being an important event, beautiful to walk through in a pleasant way.
When I arrived in the festival, nothing special surprised me, as it seems a lot like other festivals that take place in a big city. The decoration and all the colours were very beautiful, a delight for the eyes. What most appeals to me when I entered into the yellow pavilion (it’s like this, the festival was divided in multiples pavilions of different colours) was the presence of a lot of countries: Mexico, Paraguay, United States, Brazil…. In this way it seems to me more as a tourism festival than a book festival. Furthermore, talking about the country’s stands, there are some things that I didn’t “catch”, as the presence of a kind of space rocket for USA or the promotion of tourism in Patagonia or Brazil. So, there were some stands for worldwide organisations as the United Nations or organisations for the environment protection, in those cases I imagine that their presence in the festival was more to promote their organisation and incentive people to give money for donations, in exchange of a book, than to promote general reading. For me the presence of such organisations is important in order to remember that reading doesn’t only represent a hobby but also a way for learning and for being aware of what happens in the world.
The main attraction of this festival was clearly to find books that you can’t buy in other places or to buy them cheaper; maybe there were a lot of books that you can’t find in libraries… no matter what, the Book Festival keeps being an important event, beautiful to walk through in a pleasant way.
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