The Guadalajara fair closes with a 5% increase in attendees compared to 2024

Guadalajara, Jal., The Guadalajara International Book Fair (FIL), which concluded yesterday, received around 953 thousand visitors, which meant an increase of close to 5 percent compared to the 2024 edition, reported the president of the meeting, José Trinidad Padilla López.

This Sunday the guest of honor of the fair also changed his address, moving from Barcelona to Italy.

During the balance conference of the editorial meeting that took place from November 29 to December 7, the official commented that, according to preliminary data, the number of attendees exceeded the previous year by 45 thousand people.

Karla Planter, rector of the University of Guadalajara, was pleased with the good relationship of the FIL with the federal government, which is demonstrated by the presence at the inauguration of Marcelo Ebrard, head of the Ministry of Economy, who gave them the Made in Mexico badge, the first time that it is not awarded to a product.

Padilla López added that over nine days more than 3,000 activities were carried out inside and outside the Expo Guadalajara, such as in the surrounding hotels, the University Cultural Center and the University auditorium, among other locations.

He explained that on this occasion the FIL Guadalajara stood out for the presence of authors of international stature, such as the Nigerian Chimamanda Ngozi, the Spanish María Dueñas, Eduardo Mendoza and Luis García Montero, the Cuban Leonardo Padura, the Italian Donatella di Pietrantonio and the Palestinian Samer Abu Hawash.

The Chilean Nona Fernández and the Salvadoran Horacio Castellanos Moya also stood out, as well as the Mexicans Cristina Rivera Garza, Guillermo Arriaga and Alma Delia Murillo.

For her part, Marisol Schulz considered that the fair she directs is “of joy, of smiles, of children, of happiness, and everything brought together by books, thought and culture.”

He explained that after the difficult years that the organization went through in economic terms, “the fair is now completely self-sufficient, with the sponsorship of the entities that participate. We are in the black.”

He indicated that income was recorded for 131,258,454 pesos and expenses for 128,100,379 pesos. “We have a relative profit of 3 million 185 thousand 75 pesos, which is being worked on for the following year and for other projects.”

The director added that in the 43 square meters of Expo Guadalajara the number of publishing labels increased to 2,790 from 64 countries, which brought 450,000 copies, “a universe of books completely impossible elsewhere, something that is also to be celebrated.”

In the virtual sphere, Schulz said, they had a “community of more than 813 thousand followers and more than 60 million users,” calculated from the number of reactions on networks. “At the end of these nine days we think we will have had close to 2 million visits to our website alone.”

Later, it was reported that the phrase “The world speaks to us like a great book,” uttered by William of Baskerville in The name of the rose, novel by Umberto Eco, replaced the motto The flowers will come (The flowers will come), in the change of direction within the FIL Guadalajara that went from Barcelona to Italy.

In a ceremony in which the delegations exchanged the guest card, yesterday in the Juan Rulfo room, Filippo la Rosa, director for the promotion of Italian culture and language of the government of that country, said that they received the appointment with pride and responsibility.

It will be the second time that Italy assumes the role of guest of honor of the FIL, since in 2008 it attended with a delegation of 70 authors, as well as artists, intellectuals and book professionals.

“Umberto Eco, whose tenth death anniversary will be commemorated in 2026, said that a man who reads for pleasure and not out of obligation is worth two. By reading we become accustomed to looking at the world with 100 eyes and to harbor in our minds, in our hearts, an infinite number of ideas instead of just one. Reading a book is exploring universes,” said La Rosa.

He described that Eco’s words in the voice of Friar De Baskerville join those also spoken by Dante Alighieri when, at the end of his journey in the divine comedy, Already arriving at Paradise, fix your gaze on the divine light to glimpse there, bound as in a book, everything that was scattered throughout the universe.