BOOKS-CUBA: Publishing Industry on the Rebound

By Dalia Acosta Reprint | | Print |

Dalia Acosta

HAVANA, Feb 10 1998 (IPS) - Cuba’s book-publishing industry, hard hit by the economic crisis that has gripped the country since 1990, is showing the first signs of recovery – albeit slowly.

The weekly ‘Workers’ – the publication of Cuba’s sole labour union – dubbed the Eighth International Book Fair that wound-up here Feb 10 as the “Comeback Fair.”

Seventy publishing houses and other institutions displayed some 200 new titles to avid Cuban readers, who have been suffering from the long dry spell, in which the number of publications plunged, while prices soared. The fair, considered by experts as the most varied and “cosmopolitan” of Cuba’s book fairs, has raised hopes that the shelves of the country’s leading bookstores will no longer be filled by dust.

Reports by the Cuban Book Institute (ICL) show that since 1990 book publications have been reduced to some to 2,500 or 3,000 compared to more than 30,000 that were being sold in the late 1980s. While more than 40,000 titles were published from 1960 to 1990, the 1997 total was 700. And while 1.2 billion copies were sold in those 30 years, one million were sold in 1992.

The publishing industry’s crisis peaked from 1993 to 1994, when only 1.15 million and 3.6 million books were produced, respectively. By 1996, the figure had risen slightly to four million.

According to ‘Workers’, Cuba’s publishing system has not yet staged a total recovery, because the books on library and bookstore shelves today represent only one-fifth off the books produced in the 1980s. Furthermore, the insatiable Cuban reader only has access to the newest international publications at the book fair, held every two years, or when visiting one of the 21 stores which sell books from some 70 foreign publishing houses – which are sold only in dollars.

Most Cubans can only window-shop at those stores, because the few dollars to which they have access must go towards basic articles such as cooking oil and soap.

ICL president Omar Gonzalez said a portion of the books must be sold in dollars in order to finance production costs, but that another – although smaller – part is sold in pesos. “That deprives readers of a certain quantity of books, but the problem must be assumed,” he said. “No publication is sold exclusively in dollars, at least half of any printing reaches the Cuban reader.”

The rise in publishing costs has also pushed up the prices of books sold in Cuban pesos. Experts say the publishing cost of a book rose eightfold in the 1990s with respect to last decade, while the average cost of a book climbed from 80 Cuban cents prior to 1990 to 5.54 pesos in 1996.

The announcement by authorities that prices would be reduced – although the era of “the world’s cheapest books” will remain in the past – is good news to Cubans, whose average salary is around 200 pesos, less than 10 dollars.

The recovery of the publishing industry is also partly due to government support, especially for the production of school textbooks, and to the close to one million dollars provided by the Fund for the Development of Education and Culture.

Local publishers have also reached accords with around 15 publishing houses worldwide to produce co-editions, more than 100 titles a year up to now. Many of those publishing houses figure among the 400 from 27 countries which are attending the Eigth International Book Fair in Havana, whose organisers hope to reinforce the role of ICL and books in general in Cuban society.

“The intention is to reawaken the interest of the public in general, and youth in particular, in such a noble product that enriches the intellect,” said the director of ICL.