Pulitzer prize winner Anne Boyer once called Buenos Aires “the city for people who love books” — and who loves books more than the people who actually make them?

The Publishers’ Fair (FED, for its Spanish initials), a major event in the Buenos Aires literary agenda, has officially announced its 2023 line-up. Following its success in 2022, where crowds exceeded the organization’s expectations, this year’s FED has added an extra day and extended its hours: it will take place from August 3 to 6, between 2 p.m. and 10 p.m., in Complejo Art Media, Corrientes Ave. 6271, with free admission.

More than 300 publishing houses from Latin America and Spain will offer the very best of their catalogs: from contemporary and classic literature, essays, and poetry, to children’s literature and graphic novels, among many other genres.

“The idea of extending admission hours and adding another day is so people can walk through the fair as calmly as possible, stay around and chat, and let their curiosity fly around the endless amount of books,” Victor Malumián, co-founder of Godot publisher and one of the FED organizers, told the Herald.

International guests include American novelist Peter Rock — whose books My Abandonment, Klickitat, The Night Swimmers and The Shelter Cycle have all been published in Argentina by Ediciones Godot — and Brazilian feminist author Djamila Ribeiro. Mexican editor, poet and translator Isabel Zapata is also one of the highlights, alongside other Latin American authors like Matías Celedón (Chile), Marcial Gala (Cuba) and Gabriel Payares (Venezuela).

Argentine US-based graphic artist Liniers, a frequent illustrator of The New Yorker magazine covers, will also be signing his books for the public.

There will also be around 14 conferences,featuring a mix of established and emerging local writers, such as Martín Kohan, Beatriz Sarlo, Iosi Havilio, Edgardo Scott, Ariana Harwicz, Romina Paula, Alejandra Kamiya, Paula Puebla, Guido Herzovich, Roque Larraquy, Osvaldo Baigorria, and Malena Higashi, among others.

Thehemes will range from the writers’ relation with their own personal libraries, feminism, and anti-racist struggles, scientific imagination, to inhabiting a foreign language.

The FED will also feature the second edition of the Fellowship program, which brings foreign editors to Buenos Aires to get first hand knowledge of local publishing and bookselling. The program, meant to promote copyright and translation rights purchasing of Argentine literature, has selected 5 editors: Chris Wait from US-based New Directions, Nathalie Alliel (Actes Sud – France), Francisco Llorca Zabala (Las afueras – Spain), Ana Luiza Greco (Fósforo Editora – Brazil), and Rodrigo Bastidas Pérez (Ediciones Vestigio – Colombia)

There will also be a special treat for all those attending the fair: a free copy of La traición, a special edition of a collective book featuring texts by authors Nicolás Artusi, María Sonia Cristoff, Camila Fabbri, Betina González, Violeta Gorodischer, Luis Gusmán, Carla Maliandi, Edgardo Scott, Javier Sinay, Damián Tabarovsky, Soledad Urquia, and Luis Chitarroni, a revered editor who passed away last May.

For the third year in a row, the FED will hand out a Best Bookstore of the year award. This year’s finalists are Céspedes Libros, Vuelvo al sur and Mandolina Libros (all from Buenos Aires City), Notanpuan (San Isidro), Portaculturas (Córdoba), Ludditas (Mendoza), Delibooks (Lomas de Zamora), and Mal de archivo (Rosario). The winner will obtain AR$700.000 credit to buy books and a 50% discount in all of the fair’s stands.

All books available at the FED can also be purchased online through the Cespedes Libros webstore, with free shipping and a gift copy of La traición in purchases over AR$10,000 (US$20 at the MEP dollar exchange rate.)

Together with the Buenos Aires Blood Center, Céspedes Libros is also organizing a blood donation stand at the FED, with prior registration required. “The percentage of blood donors in Argentina is very low: only 1.5% of people who could actually do so. With only 8%, people wouldn’t need to organize urgent blood donation campaigns, which most people surely have had to for relatives and friends”, said the organizers to Télam.

– with information from Télam.