A Cavalcade of Authors at the Miami Book Fair International
By Oscar Pedro Musibay -- Publishers Weekly, 11/14/2008 6:55:00 AM
Cultural critic, educator and philosopher Cornel West, his publisher, broadcaster Tavis Smiley and a cadre of nonfiction authors writing in both English and Spanish, dominated the first few days of the 25th annual Miami Book Fair International held at Miami Dade College in downtown Miami. The Miami Book Fair, which attracts more than 250,000 book-loving visitors during its eight-day run, hosts publishers, authors and vendors from all over the world. It’s signature “Evenings With” series features different authors each night, in both English and Spanish. The presentations build momentum toward the weekend street fair and author-palooza with 400 writers speaking to packed rooms throughout the college campus.
West, who opened the fair last Sunday, was promoting his latest, Hope on a Tightrope: Words and Wisdom published by SmileyBooks. Both he and his publisher, TV/radio host Tavis Smiley, spoke to a packed house on Sunday night about politics, travel and the resilience of racism in America despite president-elect Barack Obama’s ascension to the White House. Smiley was also promoting his new work, Accountable: Making the Covenant Real by Atria Books. That same day, editors and writers paid tribute to Cuban author Jose Lezama Lima as part of the Miami Book Fair’s Ibero American program for Spanish speakers in a presentation that included singer-turned-author Jose Jose and Grammy Award-winning composer and producer Kike Santander, both of whom read from their autobiographies.
This year marks the launch of the Comix Galaxy, a partnership between the Miami Book Fair and Diamond Book Distributors to greatly expand the presence of graphic novels at the book fair and celebrate the category with educational workshops and creator presentations running through the weekend. Indeed the fair featured a Wednesday evening panel (and screening of a documentary film Will Eisner: Portrait of a Sequential Artist) in tribute to cartoonist Will Eisner, the man credited with creating the graphic novel. The panel included underground comics legend Denis Kitchen, comics creator Scott McCloud and W.W. Norton executive editor Bob Weil, Eisner’s trade book editor, among others. The discussion was held in a gallery featuring a presentation on Eisner’s seminal work The Plot, The Secret Story of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Weil, who edited The Plot, said Eisner was obsessed with the work of graphic nonfiction, which is an effort to expose The Protocols as an anti-semitic fraud. “Will’s work with The Plot has just begun,” Weil explained.
Also among the featured authors were David Sheff, author of Beautiful Boy, the bestselling account of his son’s meth addiction; Ishmael Beah, who penned the striking and controversial memoir of being a child-soldier, A Long Way Gone and physicist and string theory expert Brian Greene, author of Icarus at the Edge of Time, who gave the crowd a lively and easily consumable discussion on cutting edge thinking about black holes. The Spanish-program featured Argentinean author Pablo De Santis and a separate presentation by fellow countryman, renowned novelist and essayist Marcos Aguinis.
Last night the spotlight was on world traveler and master chef Anthony Bourdain, author of Bloomsbury’s The Nasty Bits, joined by chef extraordinaire Mario Batali, who hosts a show based on one of his books on PBS. And later the same night, Gore Vidal, author of The Selected Essays of Gore Vidal was also set to speak to a sold-out room. The Miami Book Fair continues though the weekend.
