History
Although the fair was established in 1975, it was not the first book fair held in Buenos Aires. Earlier fairs were held at plazas, venues, or the Buenos Aires Cabildo. There was a great fair in 1930 at the Plaza de la República. Those fairs, however, were not held in regular periods.
The SADE sought in 1971 a way to encourage the publishing business in Argentina, promoting more than 35 fairs in the 71-74 period. Those fairs, hosted as well at other cities of Argentina, were not limited to sell books, but included as well poetry, theatre, music or ballet performances. The SADE called most editorial houses of Argentina in 1974, and organized a new fair in closed quarters rather than in the street as it was done so far. Thus, the first fair of this type was held in March 1975 and was for years known as the "Buenos Aires International Expo, from the Author to the Reader". The first fair was held in the Centro de Exposiciones de la Ciudad de Buenos Aires, a utilitarian building in the Recoleta borough of 7,500 square meters, with 50 noteworthy authors, 116 stands from 7 foreign countries, and received 140,000 visitors.
The fair has been hosted in recent years by the Argentine Rural Society in its Palermo borough expo grounds, of nearly 45,000 square meters. The number of stands has increased to 1,500 from 50 foreign countries, and the public is estimated to be nearly the 1,200,000 annual visitors.
The 2011 fair was opened by Mario Vargas Llosa, which generated political turmoil in Argentina. Vargas Llosa had criticized the policies and alleged corruption of the presidency of Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, and some Argentine intellectuals, including National Library director Horacio González, requested to prevent his presence. Kirchner instructed them to give up such requests, and Vargas Llosa opened the fair as planned. Nevertheless, ministers Aníbal Fernández and Florencio Randazzo made further critics hours before the speech. Vargas Llosa thanked the president for her intervention during his speech, which had not incidents.
Read more about this topic: Buenos Aires International Book Fair
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