New York City International Book Fair kicks off with 160 events, twice as many as last year

The eighth edition of the New York City International Book Fair (FILNYC) arrives in Manhattan stronger and more ambitious than ever. This year’s edition has double the number of activities, offering 160 events over five days, including panel discussions, workshops, professional sessions for the publishing industry, book clubs and, for the first time, programming for children and young adults, with dedicated spaces providing resources for teachers who want to promote reading in Spanish.

FILNYC, which grew out of an initiative by CUNY’s Institute of Mexican Studies, has become one of the country’s most prominent events for celebrating and raising the visibility of Spanish-language literature in the United States. Rather than being intimidated by the current political climate, it is expanding.

“I think that at a time when language is being used to question who belongs in this country, writing and reading in Spanish is a way of asserting our place here, our ability to tell our own stories,” Deyanira Álvarez, executive director of FILNYC, says by phone, expressing excitement about the scale the fair has reached this year. “We must defend the right of those who write in Spanish to address any subject without having to constantly explain their origins or prove they belong.”

The fair does precisely that by fostering innovation, bringing in new voices, and expanding collaborations and networks among Hispanic cultural organizers. It issued three open calls for participation in talks, workshops and book presentations, and the response speaks for itself: more than 300 book presentation proposals were submitted, of which only 15 could be selected.

This year’s opening panel will revolve around the fair’s central theme, “The Sea We Are,” and will feature a conversation between Chilean artist Cecilia Vicuña, who received an Art Basel Award gold medal in the Icons category in 2025, and Puerto Rican writer Mayra Santos-Febres, a leading figure in Caribbean literature. The discussion will be moderated by Mónica de la Torre.

“That opening panel brings together many of this edition’s questions about language, memory and our relationship to the territories we inhabit,” Álvarez says, highlighting the fair’s effort to include voices that help rethink literature through different experiences

“Vicuña is an extraordinary poet,” she adds. “Language is at the center of her work and connects to the body, threads, voice and even the landscape. That way of understanding poetry interests us greatly because it allows us to think of language as something living that preserves memory and also transforms, while her career shows how a work can inhabit different territories and become part of a city’s cultural life, and New York’s in particular.”

Cities on the waterfront take on particular prominence in this year’s edition, especially Buenos Aires and New York, which is home to the largest Spanish-speaking populations in the United States in absolute numbers, at around 1.8 million people.

“These are cities shaped by different languages, deeply connected by the shared trajectories of writers who have drawn those imaginary lines across time,” Álvarez explains. Among the literary figures who helped build bridges between the two shores are two Argentines: poet Alejandra Pizarnik, whose 90th birth anniversary is being commemorated by the fair, and Jorge Luis Borges, the subject of several panel discussions marking the 40th anniversary of his death.

One of FILNYC’s most anticipated events is the Velada Lorca (Lorca Evening), now in its fourth edition, to be held on October 22 at the Cervantes Institute, featuring writer David Uclés and flamenco singer Miguel Poveda. Poveda recently made headlines after he discovered previously unpublished verses attributed to the Granada-born poet Federico García Lorca. Although admission is free, as it is for all fair events, advance registration is required because of the high level of interest.

In addition to Pizarnik, Borges and Lorca, the fair will also pay tribute to Juan Rulfo, Elena Garro and Gabriela Mistral. “We do not present them as a test of cultural literacy,” notes José Higuera López, director of CUNY’s Institute of Mexican Studies and FILNYC’s founding president. “But as guiding stars or reference points that help any reader, whatever they read, find their own course in the sea that we are.”

While most events will take place at FILNYC’s main venue, John Jay College, the program also includes activities at partner institutions such as the Cervantes Institute and the Americas Society.

The Whitney Museum, one of New York’s most iconic cultural institutions and a longstanding supporter of Spanish-language culture in the city, has joined the fair for the first time as a partner organization. The museum will host the panel discussion Translation as Pre-Writing, featuring Samantha Schnee, founder of Words Without Borders; Anna Kushner, translator of authors including Mario Vargas Llosa; and Katie King, who has translated works by Marta Sanz and Luis García Montero.

This year’s edition will even include an exhibition, MACONDO YORK, a project supported by the Gabo Foundation that originated in a workshop organized by the fair and later became a book conceived by designer Iván Onatra. It now returns to the place where it was first imagined, transformed into a large-scale artistic installation.

Spanish-language literature is already part of U.S. culture. What matters now, Álvarez argues, is asking “what recognition and what space that literature finds within cultural institutions, publishing houses, libraries and the broader public conversation.”

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