The last year and a half of the pandemic has been an opportunity and a tragedy for the Guadalajara Book Fair, one of the most important in the world. It was an opportunity because, out of 828,000 people who could normally attend, last year the organizers moved to virtuality and managed to multiply their audience astronomically: more than 21 million people joined to watch their events through social networks or channels of public television. “We reached 81 countries,” says Marisol Schultz, director of the fair since 2013. “It still seems incredible to us, but it was real.”
But the change was tragic as well, and not just because FIL’s finances went flat, but because the entire publishing industry lost one of its most important platforms. “The publishing business is not just the sale of physical books,” says Schulz (Mexico City, 1957). FIL, he explains, is the place where every year “a copyeditor meets his peers, or an illustrator, or a translator, or a librarian, or a reading promoter. All the people who work for the book and for the book always find something at the Guadalajara book fair ”. Taking advantage of the low number of infections, FIL returns at the end of November for its 35th edition, but returns with great caution. “This is still a year sui generis”, Says Schulz in this interview about the challenges ahead for the fair, for the publishing industry, and for Latin American authors and publishers.
Question. Let’s talk about finances first. How big was the economic hit for FIL in 2020?
Answer. FIL is in the red right now. FIL lives, first, that we rent the space called Expo Guadalajara. We rent that space for nine days and, like any book fair, we sublet each of the premises, which are the stands. How does the entrance of the fair come? For the sale of stands, per square meter; and also for the sale of advertising on the spot; and also for the tickets to the fair. There are 828,000 people who pay their ticket at the box office. It is a symbolic cost (we are talking about 25 Mexican pesos per person, or 20 for students) but if you multiply that by 828,000, it already weighs. There is also other income that we have from sponsorships and sponsorships, from brand presence. Those are the income of the Fair. In 2020 there was not a single peso. Any. It was a heavy blow. Fortunately, 2019 was a year in which we had done well enough, and we had a certain carryover.
P. Did they receive any support from the federal government?
R. From the federal we have no support. In other administrations we have had support, but not in this administration. In the Ministry of Culture we had some support, but not for the fair but for certain literary programs. From CONACYT [Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología] We had great support for many years because we have a science program, and with their support we could bring in great scientists: we brought Nobel laureates in physics, chemistry, mathematics. They are fundamental supports to be able to bet on these important presences.
We have support from the state government, also from the municipal governments of Zapopan and Guadalajara. But a lot of sponsorship has been taken away from us, and we had no sponsorships last year. In sponsorships we had from beer brands to airline brands. We didn’t have that last year. Well, all that we hope to compensate this year. But it is still difficult.
P. How is this new version of FIL Guadalajara going to be?
R. The fair is planned in this way: 70% of what we do will be face-to-face and 30% virtual. On the other hand, the fair will be limited, with many controls: the sanitary control that will happen from sanitizing arches, gel, mouth covers, and all this that we already know. But not only that. A capacity control that somehow makes us have a different logistics. The fair will open from 9 in the morning to 2 in the afternoon, in a first shift, where 12,500 people are allowed to enter. Then at 2 in the afternoon the fair closes, and reopens at 4 in the afternoon, to allow sanitation in those hours. And we reopen the doors at 4 in the afternoon until 9 at night. In that other shift there are also 12,500 thousand people. So, in total, per day, we will be able to have 25,000 people as a maximum capacity. That implies a whole logistics of online ticket sales, for people to register what time they are going to arrive. That would be about 225,000 people in total, in nine days. Compare it to 828,000 we had before. It is a considerable reduction.
P. You were an editor for many years and you know the publishing industry well. What challenges do you see for publishers in 2021 or what changes do you find interesting?
R. It seems very important to me to survive the economic crisis that the entire publishing industry is facing during the pandemic. It seems to me that it is time for great alliances, but by this I am not referring to mergers. Not that one publisher is founded with another, but that it is understood that it is a time to come together to become strong. What do I mean? To the extent that the union is strength, you can pressure certain governments to have greater incentives for the book industry, or for tax issues. As long as there is a union of publishers, they will be able to achieve better results for their own industry.
On the other hand, it is time not to turn your back on new technologies. On the contrary, understand that new technologies will help you to be able to work with different reading formats. In the end the reading is one, the formats are the ones that differ. What strikes me the most today is that now it is read more than ever. But you read differently, you don’t necessarily read books. Maybe we are reading all the time on a cell phone. I realize that I read a lot of things on a cell phone, sometimes books. It is also a moment of overinformation, and as a thinking person you have to discern what is important from what is not. It is very easy to fall into a mobile, in information that is really not serving you at all. Publishers need to be more aware than ever of this cultural consumption when it comes to reading.
P. On making alliances with governments, aren’t you concerned about the control that some want to have over writers? I think of the recent cases of censorship against Sergio Ramírez in Nicaragua, or the selection of the Colombian government for the book fair in Madrid. Or do you see it as a replay of the past?
R. I believe that history repeats itself, history spirals. Of course I repudiate everything Sergio Ramírez is experiencing. I’m his former editor, I’m his friend. It seems incredible to me that a person who helped and worked in favor of a people like Nicaragua, to free it from one dictatorship, is now being persecuted by another dictatorship. This seems like a paradox to me that is incredible. However, I do not think that it happens only in Latin America, this is experienced throughout the world.
At the fair we will have the presence of the International Publishers Association, a global publishers association led by a woman, Bodour Al Qasimi, with an ability to understand the role of women in the publishing world that really amazes me. They come to present the Voltaire prize for freedom of publication. Not of expression, of the word. Why? Because just as writers are persecuted, in many countries there are also publishers imprisoned for the mere fact of having edited a book that was uncomfortable for certain governments. Sergio Ramírez will be present at the ceremony.
P. Are you concerned about this relationship of writers or editors with the government in your country?
R. It worries me in any country. I am concerned that the role of literature is misunderstood and the role of those of us who work for culture is misunderstood. I believe that what we are doing is precisely looking for spaces of freedom and plurality where all ideas converge. I think the rulers should understand the role of literature in terms of a liberation, in many ways. It is not for nothing that many governments are afraid of what is written. It is not for nothing that there are people who are imprisoned for what someone else wrote, because it is scary. There is nothing more scary than the written word. Obviously here we are talking about a country where more journalists are killed worldwide. How can we not worry about that?
P. And the government of Peru, which is the guest country this year? How did FIL react when it learned that the new Pedro Castillo government excluded authors who had already been included in the official list by the previous government?
R. We signed a agreement with the guest of honor, and governments have the prerogative to invite whoever they want. What we told the Ministry of Culture, both from one government and the other, is that any writer who is invited by Peru will have the same reception. Obviously, as a fair we always ask for certain names, because they are the best known to the public. But that is a request that is not always fulfilled. When Israel came, in 2013, Amos Oz did not come but David Grossmann came. There are many presences that are not fulfilled according to what we ask for, but it is part of an agreement that we signed, and our role is to accept what they propose to us. As long as, of course, it has the dignity and presence with which Peru comes, that it comes with a large delegation and that it complies with everything we agreed on. Yes, there were interesting names that we would have liked to have in mind. But up to there. We cannot have another position.
P. In closing, what book are you reading right now?
R. I am an editor and as an editor I have a horrible professional deformation, because I read two or three things at the same time. But the one I’m reading the most right now is The Noise of Time, or ‘The noise of time’, by Julian Barnes. It fascinates me because there are so many things that it reminds me of, precisely, when there is a government that wants to control. In this case you want to control a composer. It’s about how [el gobierno] He sets the guidelines for how his music should be, according to Stalinism, and then how he leaves the Stalinist guidelines and manages to manage his musical aesthetics. It is a book that seems fundamental to me, precisely, to understand the freedom of art.
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