Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables to Workers

Venezuelan Book Fair

President Hugo Chavez inaugurated Thursday the Second Venezuelan International Book Fair (FILVEN) with Cuba as its guest of honor….

President Chavez addressed the opening ceremony after having handed out copies of a massive edition of Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables to workers of the “Negra Hipolita Mission,” a social program aimed at helping Venezuelans in situations of extreme poverty.

The Venezuelan leader said: “The Empire sows death with its weapons. In contrast, these are our guns: books, ideas, culture.” 

Earlier, participants had attentively listened and applauded the reading of the poem “Che,” by its author Miguel Barnet, to start off the tribute that the Book Fair will pay to the historical legacy of Ernesto Che Guevara…..

UPDATE:
Venezuela Book Fair Wraps Up with Tribute to the Cuban Five

Havana, Nov 21 (ACN) Venezuela’s Second International Book Fair
(FILVEN) came to an end in Caracas Sunday with a presentation of books
related to the case the five Cubans serving long-term prison sentences
in the United States for having uncovered terrorist activities being
planned against Cuba.

Several books written by the Cuban Five men were presented at the Cuba
pavilion with family members of the five revolutionaries and Venezuelan
Minister of Culture Francisco Sesto. The books included Gaviotas
blancas (White doves), the latest book of poems by Cuban Five member
Ramon Labanino; Inseparables an essay by fellow Cuban Five member
Antonio Guerrero; and La pequena nina y el hombre boa (The little girl
and the human boa), dedicated to Ivette, the daughter of their comrade
Rene Gonzalez.

FILVEN organizers noted that the 2007 edition of the book fair will
focus on the United States, where books by authors excluded by the
large US publishing houses will be sold.

Ramon Medero, president of the National Book Center, said: “We hope to
bring together writers with a history of resistance from the
Afro-American and Hispanic communities who have struggled within a
repressed and muzzled society. We hope to give them the space they are
denied in that empire in decline.”

While the fair came to a close in Caracas, it now spreads out to the
rest of the country as well as neighboring Cucuta, Colombia through
November 30, with poetry readings and book presentations scheduled.