Headlines, Latin America & the Caribbean

/ARTS WEEKLY/ BRAZIL: Books Battle to Find Readers

Mario Osava

RIO DE JANEIRO, Apr 20 2004 (IPS) - The 18th International Book Biennial is under way in Sao Paulo, aiming to draw more than 600,000 people in 11 days – and to foment reading in a country where per capita book "consumption" remains very low.

The enormous book fair marks a moment of glory for Oswaldo Siciliano, who, after more than 50 years of founding book stores, now presides the Brazilian Chamber of Books (CBL), promoter of the Biennial, which is the largest such event in Latin America.

This year’s fair reflects the optimism that the publishing market will be much healthier in 2004 than it was in stagnant 2003, and is therefore seeing great interest by the sector’s entrepreneurs, says Siciliano, best known as the owner of bookstores in Brazil’s major cities, but also a publisher.

The booths in the 45,000 square metres covered by the Biennial site were quickly rented out by 262 exhibitors representing 830 publishing houses. Making their debut during the fair are 2,000 new titles, and more than 700 parallel activities are scheduled, including panel discussions, author presentations and entertainment spectacles.

The book biennials, which alternate between Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, have turned into major cultural events to promote literature in this country of more than 178 million people. Each Brazilian on average reads just 1.8 books a year – one-third the number in industrialised countries like the United States and Italy.

Only half of the books read in Brazil have been purchased by the reader. Low interest in reading and low average incomes limit the market to some 26 million people who buy books, 30 percent of literate adults, according to a 2001 study by CBL and other institutions.

Even so, Brazil is considered the world’s eighth leading book market in the world. A miracle if one considers the high rate of functional illiteracy and the inequalities in the country’s book distribution.

According to the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics, 11.8 percent of inhabitants older than 15 are completely illiterate (14.6 million) and 25.9 percent are functionally illiterate (32.1 million) – for a total of 37.7 percent of the population that cannot read.

Bookshops are relatively scarce in Brazil. The "good ones" number no more than 700, and the book sales sites total 2,000, including kiosks and other types of shops, such as stationery stores and supermarkets.

So books have a hard time reaching buyers – but the dearth of bookshops reinforces the role played by the major biennials and the smaller fairs that are held in other Brazilian cities.

The government itself contributed to the closure of thousands of bookshops in the past decades, buying educational texts directly from the publishers to distribute to students in the public education system.

That removed from the market just over half of all books published in the country.

Another problem is the lack of libraries, which are essential in fomenting the reading habit in this country where the majority of the population lives in poverty. Around 1,200 of the 5,600 municipalities in Brazil do not have a single library.

This panorama means that publishers limit the editions of each new title to just 3,000 copies, on average – a vicious cycle that drives up book prices and discourages buyers.

In the 1950s, publishing houses in Brazil proliferated, and now total more than 530, and the number of new titles published each year increased 10-fold, said Siciliano.

There are now almost 24,000 new titles coming out each year, according to CBL figures, 80 percent of which are by Brazilian authors. The devaluation of the national currency, the real, since 1999 has dampened publication of foreign titles by driving up copyright costs.

In addition to Siciliano, books in Brazil benefit from the dedication of other lesser-known "heroes" in overcoming the many obstacles they face.

Evandro dos Santos, a bricklayer from an outlying neighbourhood of Rio de Janeiro, set up a library in his house more than five years ago, beginning with 50 books he found in the street. Through his personal effort, and with donations from others, the library grew to more than 30,000 titles, and has even set up branches in nearby neighbourhoods.

Last year he received the backing of the Ministry of Culture for a building to serve as the headquarters of the Tobias Barreto Community Library. The world-renowned architect Oscar Niemeyer lent a hand in designing the building, which opened the door to contributions from others far and wide.

The passion of Dos Santos for books is an incredible tale. He arrived in Rio in the mid-1980s, a poor migrant from northeast Brazil, 27, and practically illiterate.

Brasilia has its own unique promoter of books and reading. Luiz Amorim, who was illiterate until age 16, gave his butcher shop, T-Bone, a dual purpose when he added the library in 1994. Beginning with just a few books back then, today he has more than 6,000 to lend.

Amorim became known for the strange combination of meat and books, and has gone on to organise cultural activities in addition to encouraging Brazilians to adopt the reading habit.