36th Annual International Book Fair of Buenos Aires

For the third year in a row, I went to Buenos Aires' annual International Book Fair last night, this time with my friend Doug, who is a soon-to-be author himself. This is the largest book fair in South America and pitches primarily to the Spanish-speaking market, although a handful of vendors were selling books in English.

The fair attracts a number of well-known international authors including Marcos Aguinis and Bernardo Stamateas (both pictured above), as well as John Katzenbach, a prominent US author of thriller novels.

There were literally hundreds of thousands of books on display, along with lectures taking place, book signings, and booths sponsored by several embassies including the US, Brazil, Paraguay and Argentina. Because 2010 is Argentina's bicentennial (on May 25), one theme of the fair focused on its history and throughout the exhibit hall were a number of military personnel in their traditional uniforms, posing for photos.

The US embassy passed out a nice mini-book that discusses (in Spanish) the 200 year relationship that Argentina has had with America. My only criticism of the embassy's booth was that they were also handing out free copies of a book entitled, "President Barack Obama in His Own Words," which was nothing more than taxpayer funded propaganda as far as I was concerned. Why on earth would the US government be spending money on this considering the dire straits of their economy right now?