Noticias
FILIJ surpasses half a million visitors for the first time; Republic of Korea is announced as 2019 Guest of Honor
November 20, 2018Three editions were enough for the International Children’s and Youth Book Fair, FILIJ, organized by the Department of Culture of the Federal Government, through the General Directorate of Publications (DGP), to consolidate its purpose of strengthening the cultural offer north of Mexico City, to ensure that the general public, families and especially students of schools of nearby municipalities and even neighboring municipalities will appropriate it, as attested by the numbers of attendance and growth of activities carried out.
In its 38th edition, and its 11 days of programming, the FILIJ surpassed for the first time in its history half a million visitors, reaching 547, 759, for which the number of activities also increased significantly: more than 3,000, including 95 for professionals, with the participation of 100 national and international guests from a total of 23 countries, including Oliver Jeffers (Australia), Sally Green (United Kingdom), Javier Ruescas (Spain), María Emilia López and Pablo Maurette (Argentina), and especially those from the Pacific Alliance (Chile, Colombia and Peru) this year's Guest of Honor, such as Santiago Roncagliolo, Issa Watanabe, Constanza Mekis, Yolanda Reyes, Mario Mendoza, Sol Undurraga, among many others.
Sinaloa, Guest State of Honor, joined significantly in this effort to attract new audiences and promote the emergence of more readers among the new generations, through the diverse cultural and artistic program offered, and the presence of important authors such as Élmer Mendoza or José Ramón Ibarra Ramírez.
Carried out in compliance with the Federal Department of Culture's Book and Reading Promotion Program, FILIJ attended more than 28,000 students within its School Visits Program and offered 1771 sessions of workshops for babies, children and young people, 310 book presentations, 805 shows, among others, as well as 9 exhibitions and the presence of 1365 publishing houses.
In the closing ceremony held on Monday night, November 19, Marina Núñez Bespalova, head of the DGP, announced that South Korea will be the Guest Country of Honor of the 39 FILIJ, to be held from November 8 to 18, 2019.
Accompanied at the conference table by Kijin Song, director of the Korean Cultural Center, representing the Ambassador of the Republic of Korea in Mexico, Kim Sang-il, Jimena Lara Estrada, Director of International Affairs of the Department of Culture, Carlos Anaya, president of the National Chamber of the Mexican Publishing Industry (Caniem) and Gastón García Marinozzi, director of the FILIJ, Marina Núñez gave the general balance of the Fair and reported on the appointment of the writer Antonio Malpica as Ambassador 2019 FILIJ, replacing the illustrator Cecilia Rébora, who developed her activities under this appointment this year.
Prior to the ceremony, the 2018 Promotion of Reading and Writing Award was given in eight categories: in Promotion of Reading and Writing in the National Reading Rooms Program, to Juan Carlos Aguirre Ochoa for the project Las bibliochicas de la peni: 22 floating books (Sinaloa), in Promotion of Reading and Writing in the National Network of Public Libraries and Eduardo Ramírez Juárez for Temporary and Itinerant exhibitions of the library's bibliographic, illustrative and cultural heritage, as promoters of reading and writing (Puebla).
Leticia Lumbreras Bautista with El ático (Jalisco), received the prize in the Librerías section; Reneé Ivonne Acosta Díaz in Reading Promotion and Writing from Civil Society for Muki ra'ichari, word woman (Chihuahua), and Jesús Eugenio Ricaño Ortega, with Readings and Adventures (Jalisco), in the Public Schools of Basic Education category.
In Reading Promotion and Writing in Other Educational Spaces, Amelia Natalia Lara Mejía was awarded for De las hojas a los ojos (San Luis Potosí); in the category directed to Companies, the winner was INTERprotección, with the 360º Reading Program Inter (Mexico City), and the Prize for the Promotion of Reading, Writing and Oral Tradition in National Indigenous Languages was awarded to Esther Moreno Batista for Sigilosamente contra un gigante (Chihuahua).
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