Major Presence of Latin American Authors in Havana Book Fair

The 13th edition of the Havana International Book Fair remembered Chilean poet Pablo Neruda (1904-1971) in his one hundredth birthday with a colloquium and the presentation of a couple of titles, The Winter Garden and The Separated Rose.

The colloquium took place at the Jose Antonio Portuondo Hall in old-timed San Carlos de la Cabaña Fortress, the book festival’s traditional fairgrounds, in an event that will reach out to other 33 cities across the nation beginning next Monday.

Cuban writers Miguel Barnet and Pablo Armando Fernandez –both winners of Cuba’s National Literature Prize- together with poets Cesar Lopez and Jesus David Curbelo, were some of the boldface names in the colloquium.

Another literary event entitled Bertolt Brecht and Contemporary Performing Arts also took place on the premises where German author Manfred Wekwerth dictated a master lecture on the life and work of that major fellow playwright.

Poetess Carilda Oliver Labra, this year’s guest writer, is taking up the bulk of daily schedules with the presentation of several books, including Personal Anthology: A Carilda Oliver Biography; Poetry as Fate; a storybook entitled At One O’clock in the Afternoon, her debut piece as a storyteller, plus two other books, I’ll Be a Shadow but a Dame and With Yesterday’s Ink.

Mrs. Oliver will also attend the unveiling of a CD-ROM produced by CITMATEL Co., featuring the poetess’s biography, poems, pictures and other works.

For the fair’s closing ceremony Sunday, Chilean singer Isabel Parra, daughter of late songwriter Voleta Parra, will stage a concert to honor the five Cuban prisoners jailed in the U.S. since 1998, charged with conspiracy and acting as foreign agents in that country in a trial that the defendants’ attorneys labeled as “rigged and packed with illegal proceedings.”

At the same time, three Mexican painters opened an exhibit in tribute to the 500th anniversary of German artist’s Adam and Eve painting.