The Buenos Aires International Book Fair (''Spanish: Feria Internacional del Libro de Buenos Aires'') is held every April in

Buenos Aires Buenos Aires ( or ; ), officially the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires ( es, link=no, Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires), is the capital and primate city of Argentina. The city is located on the western shore of the Río de la Plata, on South ...

Argentina Argentina (), officially the Argentine Republic ( es, link=no, República Argentina), is a country in the southern half of South America. Argentina covers an area of , making it the second-largest country in South America after Brazil, th ...

, and is one of the top five book expos in the world, oriented to the

literary Literature is any collection of Writing, written work, but it is also used more narrowly for writings specifically considered to be an art form, especially prose fiction, drama, and poetry. In recent centuries, the definition has expanded to ...

community as well as to the general public.

Organization

The expo is organized by the ''Fundación El Libro'', a

non-profit A nonprofit organization (NPO) or non-profit organisation, also known as a non-business entity, not-for-profit organization, or nonprofit institution, is a legal entity organized and operated for a collective, public or social benefit, in co ...

established by the Argentine Society of Writers (SADE). The fair is held each April month, lasting for nearly three weeks. There are stands distributed in eight halls, for both national and international publishing houses, countries, communities and Argentine provinces, and national and international institutions and organizations. Each annual fair has a specific

motto A motto (derived from the Latin , 'mutter', by way of Italian , 'word' or 'sentence') is a sentence or phrase expressing a belief or purpose, or the general motivation or intention of an individual, family, social group, or organisation. Mot ...

. The fair, open to the public, is preceded by meetings and conferences of editors, publishers, translators, booksellers and other people from the

publishing Publishing is the activity of making information, literature, music, software and other content available to the public for sale or for free. Traditionally, the term refers to the creation and distribution of printed works, such as books, newsp ...

business. Other conferences are aimed to the educative fields and to librarians.

History

Although the fair was established in 1975, it was not the first

book fair A book is a medium for recording information in the form of writing or images, typically composed of many pages (made of papyrus, parchment, vellum, or paper) bound together and protected by a cover. The technical term for this physical arr ...

held in Buenos Aires. Earlier fairs were held at plazas, venues, or the

Buenos Aires Cabildo The Cabildo of Buenos Aires ( es, Cabildo de Buenos Aires) is the public building in Buenos Aires that was used as seat of the town council during the colonial era and the government house of the Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata. Today the bu ...

. There was a great fair in 1930 at the '' Plaza de la República''. Those fairs, however, were not held in regular periods. The SADE sought in 1971 a way to encourage the publishing business in Argentina, promoting more than 35 fairs in the 71-74 period. Those fairs, hosted as well at other cities of Argentina, were not limited to sell books, but included as well poetry, theatre, music or ballet performances. The SADE called most editorial houses of Argentina in 1974, and organized a new fair in closed quarters rather than in the street as it was done so far. Thus, the first fair of this type was held in March 1975 and was for years known as the "Buenos Aires International Expo, from the Author to the Reader". The first fair was held in the ''Centro de Exposiciones de la Ciudad de Buenos Aires'', a utilitarian building in the Recoleta borough of 7,500 square meters, with 50 noteworthy authors, 116 stands from 7 foreign countries, and received 140,000 visitors. The fair has been hosted in recent years by the

Argentine Rural Society Argentines (mistakenly translated Argentineans in the past; in Spanish (masculine) or (feminine)) are people identified with the country of Argentina. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Argentines, s ...

in its

Palermo Palermo ( , ; scn, Palermu , locally also or ) is a city in southern Italy, the capital (political), capital of both the autonomous area, autonomous region of Sicily and the Metropolitan City of Palermo, the city's surrounding metropolitan ...

borough expo grounds, of nearly 45,000 square meters. The number of stands has increased to 1,500 from 50 foreign countries, and the public is estimated to be nearly the 1,200,000 annual visitors. The 2011 fair was opened by

Mario Vargas Llosa Jorge Mario Pedro Vargas Llosa, 1st Marquess of Vargas Llosa (born 28 March 1936), more commonly known as Mario Vargas Llosa (, ), is a Peruvian novelist, journalist, essayist and former politician, who also holds Spanish citizenship. Vargas Ll ...

, which generated political turmoil in Argentina. Vargas Llosa had criticized the policies and alleged corruption of the presidency of

Cristina Fernández de Kirchner Cristina Elisabet Fernández de Kirchner (; born 19 February 1953), often referred to by her initials CFK, is an Argentine lawyer and politician who has served as the Vice President of Argentina since 2019. She also served as the President ...

, and some Argentine intellectuals, including National Library director Horacio González, requested to prevent his presence. Kirchner instructed them to give up such requests, and Vargas Llosa opened the fair as planned. Nevertheless, ministers

Aníbal Fernández Aníbal Domingo Fernández (born January 9, 1957) is an Argentine Justicialist Party politician, lawyer, and certified public accountant. Throughout his career, he has remained a close ally to the former Presidents Néstor Kirchner and Cristina ...

and

Florencio Randazzo Aníbal Florencio Randazzo (born 1 March 1964) in an Argentine Justicialist Party politician. He was Minister of the Interior and Transport during the presidency of Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, from 2007 to 2015. An ally of Kirchner's during ...

made further critics hours before the speech. Vargas Llosa thanked the president for her intervention during his speech, which had not incidents. The 2020

COVID-19 pandemic in Argentina The COVID-19 pandemic in Argentina is part of the worldwide pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 () caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (). On 3 March 2020, the virus was confirmed to have spread to Argentina. As of , a t ...

and the national quarantine made a 2020 edition impossible. Initially, it was delayed on March 18. As the pandemic and the quarantine extended in time, it was held in internet instead. It lasted for three weeks, and was seen by 180,000 people at the home page, and the videos in the official Youtube channel had 53,000 views. There was no fair in 2021 either, and people attended other smaller fairs instead. The standard book fair returned in 2022.

Famous visitors

The fair has been visited by many noteworthy foreign authors, such as

Paul Auster Paul Benjamin Auster (born February 3, 1947) is an American writer and film director. His notable works include ''The New York Trilogy'' (1987), ''Moon Palace'' (1989), ''The Music of Chance'' (1990), ''The Book of Illusions'' (2002), ''The Broo ...

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Italo Calvino Italo Calvino (, also , ;. RAI (circa 1970), retrieved 25 October 2012. 15 October 1923 – 19 September 1985) was an Italian writer and journalist. His best known works include the ''Our Ancestors'' trilogy (1952–1959), the '' Cosmicomi ...

Susan Sontag Susan Sontag (; January 16, 1933 – December 28, 2004) was an American writer, philosopher, and political activist. She mostly wrote essays, but also published novels; she published her first major work, the essay "Notes on 'Camp'", in 1964. Her ...

Camilo José Cela Camilo José Cela y Trulock, 1st Marquess of Iria Flavia (; 11 May 1916 – 17 January 2002) was a Spanish novelist, poet, story writer and essayist associated with the Generation of '36 movement. He was awarded the 1989 Nobel Prize in Literat ...

José Saramago José de Sousa Saramago, GColSE ComSE GColCa (; 16 November 1922 – 18 June 2010), was a Portuguese writer and recipient of the 1998 Nobel Prize in Literature for his "parables sustained by imagination, compassion and irony ith which heco ...

Muhammad Yunus Muhammad Yunus (born 28 June 1940) is a Bangladeshi social entrepreneur, banker, economist and civil society leader who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for founding the Grameen Bank and pioneering the concepts of microcredit and microfinance ...

Tom Wolfe Thomas Kennerly Wolfe Jr. (March 2, 1930 – May 14, 2018)Some sources say 1931; ''The New York Times'' and Reuters both initially reported 1931 in their obituaries before changing to 1930. See and was an American author and journalist widely ...

Brian Aldiss Brian Wilson Aldiss (; 18 August 1925 – 19 August 2017) was an English writer, artist, and anthology editor, best known for science fiction novels and short stories. His byline reads either Brian W. Aldiss or simply Brian Aldiss, except for ...

Manuel Vázquez Montalbán Manuel Vázquez Montalbán (14 June 1939–18 October 2003) was a prolific Spanish writer from Catalonia: journalist, novelist, poet, essayist, anthologue, prologist, humorist, critic and political prisoner as well as a gastronome and a FC ...

Ángeles Mastretta Ángeles Mastretta (born October 9, 1949, in Puebla) is a post-boom Mexican author, journalist, actress, and film producer. She is well known for creating inspirational female characters and fictional pieces that reflect the social and politica ...

Rosa Montero Rosa Montero Gayo (; born 3 January 1951) is a Spanish journalist and author of contemporary fiction. Early life and education The daughter of a bullfighter and a housewife, Montero was born in Cuatro Caminos, a district of Madrid. The contra ...

J. M. Coetzee John Maxwell Coetzee OMG (born 9 February 1940) is a South African–Australian novelist, essayist, linguist, translator and recipient of the 2003 Nobel Prize in Literature. He is one of the most critically acclaimed and decorated authors in ...

J. M. G. Le Clézio Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio (; 13 April 1940), usually identified as J. M. G. Le Clézio, of French and Mauritian nationality, is a writer and professor. The author of over forty works, he was awarded the 1963 Prix Renaudot for his novel ''Le P ...

Fernando Savater Fernando Fernández-Savater Martín (born 21 June 1947 at Basque city of San Sebastián) is a Spanish philosopher, essayist and author. Early years and career Born in San Sebastián, he was an Ethics professor at the University of the Basque ...

Roger Chartier Roger Chartier, (born December 9, 1945 in Lyon), is a French historian and historiographer who is part of the Annales school. He works on the history of books, publishing and reading. He teaches at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Soci ...

Julián Marías Julián Marías Aguilera (17 June 1914 – 15 December 2005) was a Spanish philosopher associated with the Generation of '36 movement. He was a pupil of the Spanish philosopher José Ortega y Gasset and member of the Madrid School.A. Pablo Iann ...

John Katzenbach John Katzenbach (born June 23, 1950) is an American author of popular fiction. Son of Nicholas Katzenbach, former United States Attorney General, Katzenbach worked as a criminal court reporter for the ''Miami Herald ''and ''Miami News'', and a ...

Claudio Magris Claudio Magris (born 10 April 1939) is an Italian scholar, translator and writer. He was a senator for Friuli-Venezia Giulia from 1994 to 1996. Life Magris graduated from the University of Turin, where he studied German studies, and has been a ...

Isabel Allende Isabel Angélica Allende Llona (; born in Lima, 2 August 1942) is a Chilean writer. Allende, whose works sometimes contain aspects of the genre magical realism, is known for novels such as ''The House of the Spirits'' (''La casa de los espír ...

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and

Wilbur Smith Wilbur Addison Smith (9 January 1933 – 13 November 2021) was a Zambian-born British-South African novelist specialising in historical fiction about international involvement in Southern Africa across four centuries, seen from the viewpoints ...

. Argentine authors like

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Adolfo Bioy Casares Adolfo Bioy Casares (; 15 September 1914 – 8 March 1999) was an Argentine fiction writer, journalist, diarist, and translator. He was a friend and frequent collaborator with his fellow countryman Jorge Luis Borges. He is the author of the Fan ...

Silvina Bullrich Silvina Bullrich (October 4, 1915 – July 2, 1990) was a best-selling Argentine novelist, as well as a translator, screenwriter, critic, and academic. She was known in Argentina as ''la gran burguesa'' ("the great bourgeois lady"). Life and ...

Marco Denevi Marco Denevi (May 12, 1922 – December 12, 1998) was an Argentina, Argentine author of novels and short stories, as well as a lawyer and journalist. His work is characterized by its originality and depth, as well as a criticism of human incompet ...

Tomás Eloy Martínez Tomás Eloy Martínez (July 16, 1934January 31, 2010) was an Argentine journalist and writer. Life and work He was born on July 16, 1934 in San Miguel de Tucumán and is generally considered an influential and innovative figure in Latin America ...

Roberto Fontanarrosa Roberto Alfredo Fontanarrosa, known popularly as ''El Negro'' Fontanarrosa (November 26, 1944 in Rosario – July 19, 2007), was an Argentine cartoonist, comics artist and writer. During his extended career, Fontanarrosa became one of the most ...

Beatriz Guido Beatriz Guido (13 December 1924 – 4 March 1988) was an Argentine novelist and screenwriter. Biography Guido was born in Rosario, Santa Fe Province, the daughter of architect Ángel Guido (renowned as the creator of the National Flag Memoria ...

Manuel Mujica Láinez Manuel Mujica LainezIn fact, the writer himself spelled his surnames without accents, as all his books published during his lifetime show. (11 September 1910 – 21 April 1984) was an Argentine novelist, essayist and art critic. He is mainly ...

Olga Orozco Olga Orozco (17 March 1920 – 15 August 1999) (real name Olga Noemí Gugliotta Orozco) was an Argentine poet. She was a recipient of the FIL Award. Biography She was born in Toay, La Pampa, to Carmelo Gugliotta, a Sicilian from Capo d'Orlando, ...

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and

Ernesto Sábato Ernesto Sabato (June 24, 1911 – April 30, 2011) was an Argentine novelist, essayist, painter and physicist. According to the BBC he "won some of the most prestigious prizes in Hispanic literature" and "became very influential in the literary wo ...

were regular visitors of the fair as well.

Gallery

Image:Buenos Aires Book Fair 2012.jpg Image:Feria del libro 2012.jpg Image:Feria del libro BS AS 2012.jpg Image:Feria del libro bs as.jpg Image:Feria del libro de Buenos Aires 2012.jpg Image:Feria internacional del libro 2012.jpg

References

External links

Buenos Aires International Book Expo Official Website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Buenos Aires International Book Expo

Recurring events established in 1975 Culture in Buenos Aires Tourist attractions in Buenos Aires Autumn events in Argentina