A celebration of the Cuban Book and Reading Observatory

A well-deserved tribute to the Cuban Book and Reading Observatory, on the occasion of its 15th anniversary, will be the edition of the cultural program Elogio oportuno, to be held on March 30 at the Fayad Jamís bookstore in Old Havana.

Its host, the journalist and critic Fernando Rodríguez Sosa, who kindly provided us with the information, adds that the event will also be dedicated to the celebration of Cuban Book Day.

Writer and journalist Enrique Pérez Díaz, director of the Cuban Book and Reading Observatory, and Ofelia Cabrera Hernández, founder and senior specialist of this institution, will attend the meeting and talk about the objectives of this center, which is part of the Cuban Book Institute.

Those who attend the event on Thursday at 3 p.m. at the bookstore located at Calle Obispo, 261, entre Cuba y Aguiar, in the historic center of Havana, will also be able to enjoy performances by the singer Leonor Zayas, winner of the Todo el mundo canta competition organized by Cuban television.

Cuban Book Day is celebrated every year on March 31 to commemorate the foundation of the National Printing Press of Cuba on that date in 1959, an event that gave access to reading to millions of Cubans who, until the triumph of the Revolution, had been deprived of this right due to poverty and neglect by previous governments.

At the suggestion of the leader of the revolution, Fidel Castro, the first book published by the new institution was El Ingenioso Hidalgo Don Quijote de la Mancha by Miguel de Cervantes y Saavedra, the masterpiece of Spanish literature, with a print run of 100,000 copies.

From that moment on, a wide range of materials were published, including the essential primers, pamphlets and manuals used in the colossal National Literacy Campaign of 1961, in which more than 700,000 Cubans learned to read and write.

The Cuban Book and Reading Observatory, for its part, is the institution that carries out analyses and evaluations in favor of the promotion of books, reading and literature in Cuba.

Translated by Luis E. Amador Dominguez