At the close, FIL Guadalajara calls to resume the agreement of wills

The 2022 edition of the Guadalajara International Book Fair (FIL) ended its return to face-to-face income with “tables” and in a conference to offer the balance of the nine days of the edition, its president, Raúl Padilla López, made a call to recover good relations with governmental and private institutions.

“From having had a historical billing of between 125 and 130 million pesos, this year we had revenues of approximately 101 million. And that has been the expense, we have made adjustments in such a way that this year we are coming out on a draw”, he pointed out. “We kicked last year’s deficit (of about 16 million pesos), so to speak, for next year, in which we already hope to have fully healthy finances.”

As for whether the communication difficulties with the state government will affect next year, he estimated, “I think they did not affect, and it is not good for me to say so, but I doubt that they will affect next year. Of course we would like relations to normalize and good communication with all government entities. Of course, this is the desire of this fair”.

He described that the consolidation of the most important fair for letters in Spanish has been possible thanks to a “great agreement of wills, from various fields, from various institutions, public and private. Of course that is our wish, we hope that next year there will be conditions for much better coexistence and cohabitation”.

On the opinions of the federal government about the direction of the fair, Padilla assured: “there is no lawsuit. They will not have heard from me an opinion neither offensive nor even rebellious. It is, indeed, attitudes that unfortunately the federal and local governments have taken regarding this fair, but the rector has reiterated it: everyone can fit in this fair, absolutely everyone is invited (…) those who decide not to come, we respect that. We try year after year and we will keep trying”.

The president of the fair highlighted that “as it has been since its creation, in 1987, the FIL Guadalajara once again established itself as an open forum where those who want to participate in reflection, debate and, above all, the search for solutions can come freely. for the problems that afflict the different realities of the country, the region and the world”, he mentioned about an edition that evoked lyricists and thinkers such as Luis Villoro, José Saramago, Carlos Fuentes, Eduardo Lizalde, David Huerta, Susan Sontag and Ruy Pérez Tamayo.

turn the page

Ricardo Villanueva Lomelí, general rector of the University of Guadalajara (UdeG), added: “in this 36th edition we can declare that the most acute phase of the pandemic has passed and that the fair returns to look like we saw it in 2019 and we can declare that the pandemic is a thing of the past. As we saw in our corridors, that stage of 2020 and 2021 is over.

Kholua Al Mijaini, director of fairs and festivals at the Sharjah Book Authority, shared that the Emirati delegation put 200 people from 23 institutions into action and presented 66 books written by authors from the Arab nation, which were translated into Spanish. , and 24 authors from the United Arab Emirates and the Arab world took part in the cultural program. She shared that the Sharjah pavilion received more than 415,000 visitors interested in the breadth of the Arab cultural offering. “We are convinced that books and culture strengthen relations between both nations”, she highlighted.

Finally, Marisol Schulz Manaut highlighted: “as we have heard in this balance sheet, we can affirm that this edition has been a success. I would dismiss it as an edition in which we have had boundless energy, we continue to have it, and I think that no one who has been walking through these halls, in these halls, will let me lie (…) that is the stamp that It has a fair that is inserted in the second public university in our country, a great university that has been threatened and I am glad that it is the one that organizes the fair”.

The 36th edition of the FIL received 806,000 visitors throughout the 9 days of activities; It was the scene of 625 editorial releases and a lecture for 775 writers of 25 world languages ​​from 44 countries.

Change of mail: Thank you, Sharjah; welcome, European Union

The president of the FIL Guadalajara, Raúl Padilla López, highlighted the presence of the emirate of Sharjah “which fully complied with the appointment that the pandemic forced us to postpone. In these nine days we have remembered the importance of Arab culture in the construction of Western culture and we also remember the enormous influence that Arabic had in shaping the language that unites us, Spanish. As I thank Sharjah, I salute the European Union, which will be our Guest of Honor in 2023.”

“The time has come to turn our gaze to what will be our next edition, in which we will have the privilege of welcoming the European Union and the 27 countries that make up this vast and diverse community as Guest of Honor. In this way, we will celebrate 37 years of our fair with a rich and diverse display of cultural and creative expressions under the powerful and illustrative motto ‘Building a union of cultures’”, added Padilla.

Khoula Al Mijaini, Director of Fairs and Festivals at the Sharjah Book Authority, thanked the organizers of the FIL for having invited Sharjah as Guest of Honor, a distinction that allowed “to unite our nations and allowed people to share experiences and knowledge of the history of the book”; then, by way of postage delivery, he placed in the hands of Brian Glyyn, general director for the Americas of the European External Action Service, a porcelain and silver Talli X tableware made by Emirati artisans, and he in turn gave a Mexican handicraft to the Emirati dignitary, to later express that the meeting of the European Union in Guadalajara in 2023 will be “a transatlantic embrace to continue building a union of cultures.”

Successful balance in the face-to-face return edition

• 806,000 visitors, the estimated attendance at the FIL
• 2,173 imprints from 49 countries
• 625 editorial releases
• 775 writers from 44 countries, representing 25 different languages
• +100 online activities
• 18 million views of the fair’s online broadcasts

ricardo.quiroga@eleconomista.mx