From this Thursday to March 12, the XXXI Book Fair in Ciego de Ávila promises to transform the city into a party and inaugurates the challenge of going from printed titles to digital ones as an alternative to increase the offer in the face of the deficit of resources, which prevented completing editorial cycles on time and in the country. Although the options will not be fewer, the formats will change.

However, this is just a pause in the discourse that the organizing committee is basting together, since the truth is that the contest is back on its feet with 10 areas for the sale of copies, book presentations, gatherings and conferences, as well as a broad extension plan that will reach prisons, schools and different centers of social interest.

Yanelis Santos Nieve, director of the Provincial Book and Literature Center, said that more than 24,000 copies would go on the shelves, which correspond to 1,200 titles and 392 novelties, including audiobooks and digital materials.

“We managed to print two issues of Videncia magazine and there will be 25 children's titles representing the catalogs of all the publishers in the country. The books will have a higher price than in other years, but there will be all kinds of offers, even the Cuban Book Institute approved a discount of between one and three pesos for 57 titles, which were in stock”.

Regarding the copies of Ediciones Ávila, Natacha Cabrera, director of said publishing house, explained that only those to be presented at the Havana Book Fair were printed, an expeditious space for the promotion of the author and his work, so that in the homeland they will be able to take home digitally. In addition, three audio-books will be released under this label.

In this way, the digital area, located in the hall of the Cuban Fund for Cultural Assets, will be one of the most popular, where the free download of materials, by the QR code, will democratize access to endless good literature.

Likewise, the Tesoro de Papel children's pavilion, in the José Inda Hernández house of culture; the Plaza Ciego del Ánima, on the ground floor of the 12-story building, and the area of ​​theoretical spaces, in the courtyard of the Provincial Committee of the Union of Writers and Artists of Cuba, propose an ambitious program of activities.

The map of the fair in the terroir is completed by the history area, in the Brigadier José Ambrosio Gómez Cardoso Provincial Historical Archive; the Martí area, in the courtyard of the Coronel Simón Reyes Provincial Museum; the children's theater area, in the Roberto Rivas Fraga Public Library, and the Sin Pestillo area, in the House of the Young Creator.

Among the guests who will honor the event are Omar Valiño, art critic and director of the National Library of Cuba; the poet and essayist Pedro Pérez Rivero; Yaremis Pérez, director of the digital magazine CubaLiteraria and Rubén Rodríguez, author of the book La retataranieta del vikingo, awarded as one of the most widely circulated children's books in 2020.

As part of the innovative proposals are the presentations of the catalog of Ediciones La Luz, the Callejas cultural project and the books deserving of the Calendar Award, as well as the conference Premises for local development from culture, given by Pedro Pérez Rivero.

It is expected that Morón will start with its fair from the 16th to the 19th of this month, Venezuela between March 24 and 25, Majagua on the 29th and 30th and by mid-April the Mountain Book Festival will take place in the municipalities of Florencia and Chambas.