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Book fair in Antigua ~ 2006-07-22

Posted in Arches, Cultural, People by Rudy Girón at 10:10 am.
7 comments

Book fair in Antigua

La Antigua Guatemala was founded as Santiago de los Caballeros de Guatemala (Saint James of the Lords of Guatemala) on July 25th, 1524 at a location now known as Ciudad Vieja and then moved to its present location in 1543 (about 2 miles to the north from the founding site). I tell you this, so you know why July is the town’s fair and why as part of the fair activities there is a book fair. Books are a luxury in Guatemala and the levels of readership are probably among the lowest in America.

Nonetheless, here are some interesting figures: there are 69 book publishers in Guatemala, 29 are big industrial businesses. There are only 450 points of sale for the whole country, 50% of those outlets are pharmacies. 70% of the editorial market comes from Spain, Mexico and Colombia. Guatemala is the only country in the region that taxes books (12% is the tax at the register). These figures came from a recent interview with Cecilia Baily, president of the Gremial de Editores de Guatemala (book publishers association) in the July 2006 issue of Recrearte magazine (available as PDF download in Spanish). There are two international book fairs that will start on 28th of July in Guatemala City. FILGUA, International Book Fair in Guatemala and FILCEN, International Book Fair in Central America merged on a single huge event; if you can read Spanish you can hop over to my other blog for a longer description of Filgua and Filcen.

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7 Responses »



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  1. Kate responds:

    The arches are a real focal point in the photo. I appreciate the way you always try to educate us on your photo and country.

    Response - July 22, 2006 : 5:16 pm

  2. Sarah responds:

    The arches are beautiful…and of course I love books.

    Do you have a local library?

    Response - July 22, 2006 : 6:14 pm

  3. Carol responds:

    That’s a really high tax for books! The arches are very beautiful.

    Good questions, Sarah! Do you have any libraries?

    Response - July 22, 2006 : 9:55 pm

  4. Gerald England responds:

    I remember the poet John Whitehead who lived in Antigua [and maybe still does] saying that people there appreciated literature more than is so in some other countries.

    Response - July 23, 2006 : 4:31 am

  5. rudygiron responds:

    Kate, I am glad you noticed the arches. I saw two repetitive patterns, the arches and the stacks of books. On the other hand, I do not try to educate anyone here, I am simply trying to share the information I come across.

    Sarah, there are probably 6 or 7 public libraries in Antigua. In most of them, you have to read the materials on site; they don’t have check-outs. The library at the Compañía de Jesús building which belongs to Centro Iberoamericano de Formación (Cooperación Española) does have check outs, so that is the one my wife and I use.

    Carol, 12% is the sales tax in Guatemala. We have really high sales taxes in Mexico and Central America. Income tax is low though, somewhere between 5% and 10%. Irony is that Guatemala is the only country in Mesoamerica that taxes books.

    Gerard, you are right, the people that do read here have a better and larger universal knowledge of literature.

    Response - July 23, 2006 : 8:42 am

  6. Passante responds:

    Rudy — What a coincidence! I posted on the same day on my non Daily Photo blog, Passante’s World, about a book market in the cloisters of the Vieille Bourse building in Lille, where I was a couple of weeks ago.

    Response - July 23, 2006 : 10:14 am

  7. Antigua Guatemala Daily Photo » Blog Archive » Spinning tops responds:

    [...] Some of you who have been following the photos at this site might remember these arches from the Book Fair in Antigua, back in July 22nd, 2006. Also, there is a great perspective of the hallway and the arches back in [...]

    Pingback - February 18, 2007 : 9:13 pm

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