This year I'm very enthusiastic about the IDF, so I leave an article taken from Clarin Erlan Diego:
Welcome to the party's books "says the sign at the entrance to the huge International Book Fair of Guadalajara (FIL). The mixture of languages \u200b\u200band cultures is the protagonist of the XXIII edition of the most important publishing event in the English language, which opened Saturday.
With Los Angeles as guest of honor, Chicano literature and art will be on the FIL 2009, which runs until 6 December. Renowned writers like Ray Bradbury and Orhan Pamuk, Cornelia Funke and Carlos Fuentes are included in the program for this event in 1900 involving over 17 000 publishers and industry professionals. According to the organizers believe this year will visit more than 600 thousand people.
"In the context of the global crisis, the consolidation of the IDF is not a minor challenge," says its president, Raúl Padilla López. For nearly ten days, The Fair will then be a meeting place for walking and intellectual exploration.
The choice of Los Angeles as guest of honor has for some unknown reason, is the second most populous city after the Mexican Federal District. "In these times when politicians talk about building walls, we should talk about building bridges," said Antonio Villaraigosa, mayor of U.S. city, in the opening ceremony. Through Los Angeles, said Marco Antonio Cortes Guardado, president of the University of Guadalajara, will present the cultural diversity of the United States. And in this regard will be made tributes to American writers like Raymond Chandler, Thomas Pynchon, Charles Bukowski and a videoconference with the author of The Martian Chronicles, Ray Bradbury.
However, the first tribute to the IDF was an opponent of the government of Hugo Chávez. The Venezuelan poet Rafael Cadenas received FIL Literature Prize in Romance Languages \u200b\u200b2009. Chosen by a jury notable, composed among others by the narrator and poet Dario Jaramillo Colombian and Venezuelan critic Gustavo Guerrero, Cadenas received the same recognition in previous years were given to Portuguese Antonio Lobo Antunes, English Juan Goytisolo, Guatemalan Augusto Monterroso or the Peruvian Julio Ramón Ribeyro.
Born in the Venezuelan city of Barquisimeto, the edge of the Andes in 1930, Strings is the author of an extensive poetry: Journal of exile (1960) and False maneuvers (1966) are two books his poetry is defined as an ethical profession, according to critic Adolfo Castanon. "I do not want style, but honesty," writes chains. "I want frightening accuracy," continues with the vehemence of a manifesto in one of his poems.
"I like to go unnoticed, but this time I could not do it," had chains, thankfully, in the auditorium stage during the award. Strings is one of those poets who prefer silence and believes that "good reading and good writing" is one of the few forms of resistance although with some nostalgia, says that in these times, "the poet no longer has the handles formal support served him: as a metaphor. "
Once Chains asked if poetry could save humanity. "It was a question of proportion, of those who have to ram them to God," he says now, but in an attempt to approach an answer that they believe in that culture can "counter the nightmare of history" but did not go. "We live within it."
His acceptance speech ended with an exhortation: "Take care of their democracies, he said, because even poor, democracy is always room for improvement, while the dictatorship. This will prevent a new kind of leader comes to power and destroy it. This is the message I leave, do not say a word message because it is very pretentious. "
