The Publishers’ Fair (FED) has announced its line-up of activities, guests and participants, including more than 330 publishing houses from Latin America and Spain. 

The event will run from August 8-11 with free admission at the C Complejo Art Media center, in Buenos Aires, from 2 p.m. to 9 p.m.

Since its creation in 2013, the continuously-expanding Publishers’ Fair has fostered exchange between readers and book publishers, offering book debates, presentations and other activities. 

More than 330 publishing houses from Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay, Venezuela and Spain will offer books from their catalogs and new releases of literature, essay, poetry, arts, social sciences, graphic novels and children’s books, among others. 

This year’s fair will feature 15 public conversations with local and foreign literary personalities, on subjects like the written language versus images, progressive stands in a right-wing status-quo, crossroads between literature and alternative therapies, and the promotion of reading, among others. 

The main international guests at the fair include Marie-Pier Lafontaine (Canada), Thomas Reinertsen Berg (Norway), Seynabou Sonko (France-Senegal), Luna Miguel (Spain) and  Deborah Eisenberg (US).  Renowned local authors will also participate, including Luis Gusmán, Alejandra Kamiya, Yael Frankel, Paula Puebla, Natalia Kiako, Pablo Semán, Federico Falco, Santiago Craig, and Romina Paula.

Since 2021, the fair has hosted the Bookselling Prize to acknowledge the work of bookstores throughout Argentina, from a comprehensive perspective that includes their efforts advocating culture and community work. The finalists this year are La Sede (Bariloche), Libro de Oro (Tucumán), Los Confines (Villa Ballester), and Buenos Aires bookshops Céspedes Libros, Magia and Mandolina. The prize will be announced on August 8 at 2 p.m. 

The industry is facing an unprecedented crisis, with book prices almost doubling since December due to soaring inflation, a massive drop in consumers’ purchasing power, and what insiders describe as an Argentine paper manufacturing duopoly that has seized on this crisis to drive up prices.

“We know the recession is brutal and that sales will surely not be what we all would like,” said FED organizer Victor Malumián. “But we know that the FED will be a source of joy and connection for all of us who assign value to the dissemination of ideas and stories.”

A blood-donation stand will be set up at the Fair on August 8 and 9 as part of a campaign co-organized by the Buenos Aires Blood Center and Céspedes Libros. Donors must register beforehand at https://feriadeeditores.com.ar/colecta-de-sangre/