Loose Leaves/Sadbh: The leaves are falling from the trees in Buenos Aires and one of it's great autumn events, the Feria del Libro is in full flight; a gigantic bookfest at the big event centre, the Sociedad Rural, in the park-filled Palermo area of the city.
The nearest European equivalent is probably the Frankfurt book fair but the feria has the air of being more a vibrant annual fixture in the city that hosts it. Portenõs, as the natives of the Paris of the South are called, throng the aisles of the Feria, browsing at its book stands and flocking into the many presentations. It continues until Monday. Sadbh was there to take part in a series of events organised by the Irish Embassy in association with the Cultural Division of the Department of Foreign Affairs; talks on the Irish short story and cultural journalism today, to audiences that invariably included members of the thriving Irish Argentine community. With names like Kearney and Walsh and complexions and hair colouring that seemed decidedly un-latin, they came across as more Irish than the Irish themselves.
Russia, Finland, France, Britain, Greece, Israel, Japan and Cuba were among the countries with stands. The Clarín and La Nación newspapers both published major colour supplements devoted to authors attending the feria and listings of daily events. And there were no prizes for guessing what book was dominating the bestseller lists - El Codigo da Vinci by one Dan Brown. But these are a people who like their classics and up there too, mixed in with Wilbur Smith and Umberto Eco, was Cervantes's Don Quixote. There was a sizeable Islamic representation and groups taking part ranged from Greenpeace and the Fundación Internacional Jorge Luis Borges - opened in 1998 by Borges's widow Maria Kodama - to the Madres de Plaza de Mayo, whose event centred on a book about men and women excluded from the official history of Argentina. The madres, the mothers - and other family members - of some of the estimated 30,000 people "disappeared" during the so-called Dirty War between 1976-83, meet every Thursday at the Plaza de Mayo in front of the Casa Rosada presidential palace to protest at the loss of their daughters, sons, brothers, sisters and grandchildren. When they start arriving in twos and threes on to the sunny plaza they seem initially just like old friends meeting up for an afternoon chat; then quietly as 3.30pm approaches, the women, mainly elderly now, take their famous white headscarves proclaiming who they are from their handbags, some don scapulars emblazoned with photographs of the mainly young men and women they are remembering , and slowly they start walking around the central square making their protest. Cameras click as tourists document the moment and initially it feels invasive to be snapping away at these elderly strangers but then you ask if it's ok and they nod vigorously; that's the whole point - that the world shouldn't forget.
Literary links between Ireland and Argentina are many including the imminent publication in Buenos Aires of Inventing Ireland by Declan Kiberd. Published by Adriana Hidalgo Editora under the title La Invención De Irlanda, it is due out in September/ October and will be distributed in Latin America and Spain. Explaining why she decided to take it on, Adriana Hidalgo talks about being drawn to its polemical aspect. "But also it shows how identity may be constructed through literature." Inventing Ireland has been translated by Gerardo Gambolini who a few years ago with Jorge Fondebrider of the Centro Cultural Rector Ricardo Rojas at the University of Buenos Aires brought out a bilingual edition of the work of Irish poets. Poesiá Irlandesa Contemporánea was published under the Libros de Terra Ferma imprint and included Charlie Donnelly, who died at the Jarama Front fighting for the Spanish Republic in the Spanish Civil War, Eavan Boland, Derek Mahon, John Montague, Padraig J. Daly, Dennis O'Driscoll, Paula Meehan and dozens of others. Gambolini would now like to do major translation on the work of Patrick Kavanagh.
Interestingly, Ireland Literature Exchange/Idirmhalartán Litríocht Éireann (ILE) is at this very moment inviting applications from literary translators in Argentina - and Brazil - who want to spend up to four weeks in Ireland this year working on the translation of a work of modern Irish literature. The bursary is sponsored by the Irish Copyright Licensing Agency, to mark ILE's 10th anniversary. Applicants should not be resident in Ireland and should have a publisher's contract for the work in progress. Accommodation, board and living costs will be covered and all the arrangements made by ILE, which is also offering to contribute towards travel expenses. Applications in writing by Thursday, May 19th, to Sinéad Mac Aodha, Director, Ireland Literature Exchange, (Translation Bursary Programme), 25 Denzille Lane, Dublin 2. Details from sinead@irelandliterature.com. www.irelandliterature.com