The Guadalajara International Book Fair was born in 1987 and they say that the only hole where it sank was in the great pandemic, from which it now emerges without serious injuries. Founded by Raúl Padilla, very early and year after year, the great meeting of publishers, booksellers and readers was consolidated as an unmissable event that today is called the best fair in Latin America and one of the most important in the world, perhaps the second in notoriety. For eight days, the Guadalajara venue is an anthill of people from culture, politics, academia and the written paper industry that leaves an enormous economic benefit in the capital of Jalisco: full hotels, restaurants without reservations, museums visited and taxi drivers happy. The FIL has its own name, but its foundations were shaken on April 2 of this year, when Padilla's suicide was announced, drowned out by the noise of the train in the early hours of the morning. A literary death that has left a huge void among his family and friends, and during the months that have followed until the inauguration last Saturday of this new edition of the contest opened a pressing question: what future awaits the fair without Raúl? From what most of those questioned say, the ship is going.
A single swallow does not make a summer, as already mentioned in Don Quixote. Padilla's lamented departure has not been able to detract from the inertia of an event such as the FIL. He himself gave it the speed of birds, as can be heard in the speeches that this year have sown mourning at the inauguration and other conferences. Padilla was a controversial character, politician and academic, he handled the reins of the FIL with a firm hand and attracted hundreds of intellectually acclaimed people who every year strolled through the Guadalajara expo surrounded by thousands of followers. The general director of Penguin Random House in Mexico, Roberto Banchik, remembers him like this: "He had political and diplomatic ties, he was like a monarch, his figure filled the spaces and attracted personalities from all over the world. But this isn't a one-person show. With his team they have done a great job of institutionalizing the fair, which works on its own, with clear rules of operation. It's a wonderful team," says the editor, who adds that Marisol Schulz, director and acting president of the FIL, "has done a wonderful job."
A photograph in tribute to Raúl Padilla López, during the inauguration ceremony of the FIL. Nayeli Cruz
In the absence of closing this year's numbers, everything indicates that they are going to be good, better than in 2022, when we were already getting out of the pandemic hole. The publishers rent the exhibitors at a better price thanks to the strength of the peso against the dollar, the currency, the latter, with which the spaces in the venue are rented. But since everyone counts the fair according to how it goes, what is profit for some leaves worse returns for the FIL leadership. This is what Schulz acknowledges. Also lost in this six-year term has been the funding that came from the federal government, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador antagonized Padilla, whom he often criticized, as well as the FIL itself. There were also disagreements with the Jalisco government, presided over by Enrique Alfaro, but there is still some local funding. The benefits of the Fair have been so many for a long time, that it left the University of Guadalajara about a million dollars each year. Their director says that now the university lends them money that is then returned to them at the end of the year. "Of course we would like to have a good relationship with the federal and local government, because the FIL is a shining beacon that politicians should be proud of because of its recognition and reputation around the world," says Schulz.
Apart from certain economic ups and downs marked by the pandemic and political disagreements, the director talks about the quality of this year's program, with the European Union as the guest region, an increase in sales that publishers already mention and a solid institution. "The fair doesn't have any risk," he says bluntly.
Is it possible to think of changes 37 years later? "It is revitalized every year following the trends of consumption, of readers. We now have a Comic and Graphic Novel Fair and we have just signed an agreement with TikTok, we permanently monitor global consumption and ways of making literature. We also have FIL Science. Years ago the trend was those coloring books, mandalas, that were sold everywhere, that's over, or people talking to angels, that's over too, or the times of the Da Vinci Code and its substitutes, it's also gone. We don't want to fall into trends, but we do want to adapt to what the public demands," explains Schulz. "I don't believe in drastic changes either, but in gradual adaptation," he adds.
Visitors tour the Comic and Graphic Novel Fair.Roberto Antillón
Another large Spanish-language publishing conglomerate is Planeta. Its Director of Communication and Marketing for Latin America, Myriam Vidriales, believes that the future of the fair is guaranteed by the close participation of publishers, "who finance it with the purchase of the stands and who bring to Guadalajara almost 90% of the authors who participate in the program. The FIL urgently needs to strengthen the ties that bind it to this industry, especially to the new generation of publishers who are the replacement for the next 20 years and not take their participation for granted," he claims. He also adds that "the need to attend more closely and punctually to the training and exchange of publishers in Spanish among themselves and with the rest of the world is a priority and strategic for the Fair".
Satisfied with the direction of the fair and hopeful about a publishing industry "that continues to pull hard", the general director of Random House has only a small complaint: "We would all like to pay a little less, of course, and for the internet to work better, yes, but everything is going wonderfully. Perhaps they can delve a little deeper into the international area, such as London or Frankfurt, and the same in the area of copyright, which has a gigantic growth potential, that they come to Guadalajara to sell rights," he suggests.
But his colleague Vidriales insists that the Fair is not as close to the industry as it should be. "If that were the case, it would allow him to adjust his focus on new reading phenomena, such as young people's reading or the new and modern non-fiction linked to mental health, which interests thousands of people and which does not find space at the fair because it continues to operate with selection criteria from a decade ago," he says. The disappearance of Raúl Padilla, he believes, is a propitious moment to remove from the program "the political and academic forums that distance it from its mission and meaning, that have no strategic value and that only the acts of characters with zero interest or link with books and culture arrive," he maintains.
A reader reviews the books at a booth at the fair. Hector Guerrero
Except for these criticisms or suggestions, there are not many that are collected by the different guilds of the book. When asked, the general director of the Association of Booksellers of Mexico, Gerardo Jaramillo, believes that the management of the FIL takes into account all opinions and the sale of books is taken care of, "it is a great stage, an oasis, a place of world reference," he says. "Maybe we could add a little more professional activity for booksellers, regional meetings or greater integration of small or medium-sized bookstores, but that's also up to us," he says. And while you're at it, what do you think of the price of books at the Fair, perhaps there aren't as many discounts as readers would expect from such an event? "No, no, not at all, there are discounts everywhere, many offers, publishers run promotions and there are prices differentiated from those of bookstores the rest of the year," Jaramillo concludes.
The many young Mexicans who populate the FIL these days may not agree so much with the prices offered, but they do not stop attending delighted, you just have to see them, their faces, their continuous presence, their selfies with the authors or the books themselves, their questions in the scheduled forums. That is the unmistakable sign for everyone that the event has a future. The increasingly close relationship between social networks and literature is something that does not go unnoticed by anyone in the production chain. The world is changing, also for the book. "I think that the reflection on the future of the fair that you are asking me about, beyond the significant death of Padilla, has to do with the radical changes in the world of publishing, reading and the generation and circulation of content," explains Nubia Macías, director of the Fair for 10 years (2003-2013). Formerly Deputy Director General and always linked to the fair since its inception. "The focus should not be on what to do after Raúl's death, but what a fair like FIL should do to maintain leadership in a changing world with such strong trends as artificial intelligence, climate change, the boom in independent publishing, and the rise of curated bookstores geared toward local communities. digital marketing trends or the huge questions about ethics and technology. All this is a great opportunity for FIL to strengthen its ability to look outwards and consolidate itself as the benchmark Fair that it has managed to be."
Subscribe hereto the EL PAÍS Mexico newsletter and receive all the key information on current affairs in this country