Alice Walker Gives Good Hype to Havana Book Fair’s Closing Day

Celebrated American writer Alice Walker (The Color Purple) put a great final spin on Havana’s International Book Fair with the presentation Sunday of her latest work. The Fair will now hit the road into 33 other cities across the island nation and is scheduled to come to a close next March 7.

Mrs. Walker presented Meridian at the San Carlos de la Cabaña Fortress, the traditional fairgrounds of the Havana Book Festival that this time around highlighted the figure of Cuban poetess Carilda Oliver and made Germany the guest country. With over 250 exhibitors from two dozen countries, organizers said over a quarter of a million people walked past the turnstiles of the Morro-Cabaña Historic Park.

The book –Mrs. Walker gave Cuba publishing rights on this edition- was translated into Spanish and put out by Arte and Literatura, a Cuban publisher. In it, Mrs. Walker tells the story of Meridian Hill, a woman who tries to find her place in a society mired in social and racial inequalities in the city of Atlanta.

The American authoress also met with the attending public to talk about her life and works.

The closing day of the Havana International Book Fair was marked by the sale of 30 titles. Among them, The Dealings of Mr. Julius Caesar, written by German playwright Bertolt Brecht, and Door Knock: a History of Cuba’s Revolutionary Underground Movement by Armando Hart.

Other books that also sold like hotcakes were Fidel: Testimony of a Friendly Encounter by Arturo Limon, Angusola and the Knives and other Stories by Lino Novas Calvo, and Oscar Schindler’s List: the Death Bringer by Alex Zarazgat.

Over five million copies and 1,200 new books hit the shelves and stands during the 11-day fair at the Morro-Cabaña Park, including Günter Grass’s At a Crab’s Pace and Medes by Christa Wolf, both unveiled last Saturday.

Round tables, colloquiums –like the ones devoted to Chilean poet Pablo Neruda and Cuban novelist Alejo Carpentier- book presentations, chats, music and cinema pepped up this year’s fair.

Another book that basked in the fair’s limelight was Round-trip Letters, a piece that compiles the mail sent by Cuban children to the five Cuban prisoners jailed in the U.S. since 1998, charged with conspiracy and acting as foreign agents.

Cuban poetess Carilda Oliver read some of her poems in tribute to Gerardo Hernandez, Ramon Labañino, Fernando Gonzalez, Antonio Guerrero and Rene Gonzalez.