Book Celebration in Havana

By: Pedro Martínez Pírez

As a true celebration of culture and books is the International Book Fair that is taking place in San Carlos de la Cabaña, in Havana, its main venue. Last Sunday, was awarded the national literature prize 2015 to Cuban writer Eduardo Heras León, and paid tribute to Cuban poet and educator Raúl Ferrer in occasion of his centenary.

The 24 Edition of the International Book Fair was inaugurated on February 12 and will remain opened until Sunday, February 22. As usual, the event will extend other Cuban provinces for all the Cuban to access this Book celebration.

The Fair is presenting two thousand books, over 850 of which are news, and exhibitors from 35 countries are showing their works in a beautiful setting, from which the visitors make out the Havana Bay.

As the India is the guest country this year there are many works dedicated to the Mahatma Gandhi, as well as other books devoted to great Indian writers such as Rabindranath Tagore.

Also, the people have the opportunity to buy about twenty books by Olga Portuondo and Cuban historian and researcher Leonardo Acosta, two Cuban writers to whom the international book fair is dedicated this year.

Among the most relevant this year was the presence and participation of the five Cubans who were unjustly imprisoned in the United States for 16 years. Also, Tony Guerrero, one of the five heroes, who returned to the country on December 17, 2014, presented a book on poetry with verses he wrote in prison; that is book with watercolors he also painted in prison, and he attended the launching of a disc, which set his poems to music.

International Book Fair in Havana, which daily attracts a lot of people and coinciding with the period of high touristic season in Cuba, is confirmed as the most massive cultural event of Cuba.