Marcy Schwartz, a professor in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese who specializes in 20th century Latin American literature and culture, has recently published Páginas públicas: Leer en el paisaje callejero de América Latina, the Spanish translation of her 2018 book Public Pages: Reading along the Latin American Streetscape.
Páginas públicas explores literary reading programs in urban areas that are open to the public and prompt collective reading experiences. From institutional programming by municipalities to grassroots initiatives, through short story contests with over 50,000 entries every year to handmade books bound in reused cardboard with colorful painted covers, reading becomes a community endeavor that intervenes in and relies on urban infrastructure. Beyond the confines of libraries and schools, the initiatives discussed in the book occupy the streets and reveal how urban plazas, parks, public transportation systems, even soccer stadiums become arenas for distributing books; billboards fill with poetry and short stories' and food markets become scenarios for free books, literary fairs, book swaps; all promoting new conversations among readers. As a reaction to neoliberal economic policies, these programs in Latin American cities since 2000 demonstrate a reinvigorated public sphere through a reinvestment in public space. The book highlights reading initiatives in cities in Mexico, Brazil, Colombia, Chile and Argentina that promote convivencia and focus on enhancing interpersonal interactions after periods of political violence, censorship, and dictatorship. A surge in this kind of public reading programming over the last twenty-five years invites readers of all kinds to engage in local culture and with each other through literature.
Schwartz will be giving presentations on the book this summer in Chile at the Biblioteca Nacional, the Argentine Nacional Universities of Tucuman, Cordoba, and San Martin, and the Catholic University of Uruguay. An excerpt of the book is available for free online at https://www.eduvim.com.ar/descargas/paginas-publicas/.
