FIL Guadalajara 2022 will happen “at the point of equilibrium”

Names of authors and thinkers such as Irene Vallejo, Adonis, Sergio Ramirez, Alberto Manguel, Joel Dicker, Elena Poniatowska, Fernanda Trias, Gioconda Belli, Leonardo Padura, Juan Villoro, Rosa Montero and Arturo Perez Reverte, among others, will take part in the edition 36 of the Guadalajara International Book Fair (FIL Guadalajara), which will take place from November 26 to December 4, once again fully at Expo Guadalajara, after three years of limitations due to pandemic risk.

This Friday, the organizing committee of the literary meeting, headed by Raúl Padilla López, president of the Guadalajara International Book Fair, and Marisol Schulz Manaut, general director, announced the participation of more than 600 pens from 45 countries and 18 languages , with around 3,000 literary, academic, scientific outreach, artistic, professional, children’s and youth activities, of which 620 will be editorial presentations. The emirate of Sharjah and Arab culture will finally be able to unfold as Guests of Honour.

From the Enrique Díaz de León Paraninfo of the University of Guadalajara (UDG) the names of those who will take part in the FIL Pensamiento were also announced, whose program will be nourished by the participation of 262 voices, including those of Michelle Bachelet, Marcelo Ebrard Casaubón , Carmen Aristegui, Jorge Zepeda Patterson, Esteban Moctezuma, Enrique Graue Wiechers, Porfirio Muñoz Ledo and Patricia Mercado, among many other guests.

Regarding the International Forum of Publishers and Book Professionals, the inaugural conference will be given by Kevin Fitzgerald, current director of Digital Outreach of the World Intellectual Property Organization. Bodour Al Qasimi, president of the International Publishers Association, the highest organization of its kind in the world, will also participate in this meeting.

Awards and tributes

It was reiterated that the FIL Prize for Literature in Romance Languages ​​2022 will be for Romanian narrator and poet Mircea Cãrtãrescu, while Guatemalan publisher Raúl Figueroa Sarti will be the object of the Homage to Editorial Merit and photographer Pedro Valtierra will appropriate the National Cultural Journalism Prize Fernando Benitez.

Rosalía del Carmen Macías Rodríguez will receive the Tribute to the Librarian and Alberto Manguel, the Tribute to the Bibliophile José Luis Martínez. Mexican architect and urban planner Felipe Leal, president of the Seminary of Mexican Culture and member of El Colegio Nacional, will be the recipient of the ArpaFIL Tribute. For their part, the Spanish essayist Irene Vallejo and the Spanish writer Alberto Manguel will open the Carlos Fuentes Literary Hall and receive the Carlos Fuentes Medal.

The Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz Award will be announced this Monday, October 31.

The Arab world in Guadalajara

Regarding the participation of Sharjah and the Arab world, there will be 150 writers, creators and officials who will travel to the capital of Guadalajara to get involved in the fair. The Emirati pavilion will launch 21 tables and 26 workshops where debates and talks will be held with 30 Arab and Mexican authors and creators. In particular, there will be a focus on the history of relations between the Arab world and our country.

Ahmed Al Ameri, president of the Sharjah Book Authority, announced online that among the pens that will be presented in our country are Sheikha Al Mutairi, Khulood Al Mualla, Salha Obeid, Ali Al Abdan, Alia Al Shamsi and Amal Al Sahlawi. , among others.

Along with the editorial activities, an exhibition entitled “The art of ornamentation” will be inaugurated at the Museum of Arts of the University of Guadalajara, with works by various artists from different countries of the Arab world. In addition, the FICG Cineteca and the UDG Cineforo will screen the film Khorfakkan, which was written by Sheikh Dr. Sultan bin Mohammed Al Qasimi, a member of the Supreme Council and ruler of Sharjah, which tells the story of the city of Khorfakkan and how its inhabitants resisted occupation throughout history.

During the nine nights of the FIL Forum, which each year is occupied by the Guest of Honor stage programming, artists and groups such as the Heritage Institute Traditional Band of Sharjah, the Mexican musician of Lebanese origin Eblen Macari, the Arab lute artist Kussai Al Mumari, among others.

The budget of the year

Raúl Padilla López declared that this year the fair is expected to receive practically 95% of the publishers that usually took part in the fair before the pandemic, with a few international publishers that will not be able to come, still due to the aftermath of covid- 19.

In addition, the president of the fair declared that “we are reaching 20% ​​of the revenue history. In 2019 we had about 120 million pesos in income to organize our fair, and this time we are having income of just over 100 million pesos, which will be the cost of this edition. In other words, I am very pleased to announce that at this fair, we have once again reached the point of balance. Yes, the last fair we had a deficit of 16 million pesos that we are still dragging and that we hope to amortize in the following editions”.

The fair, in years prior to 2020, the FIL had been having a remnant of between 12 and 18 million pesos.

ricardo.quiroga@eleconomista.mx