LéaLA, the Los Angeles-based Hispanic book fair, announced that it will not hold its annual event in 2014 due to a lack of funding. The once yearly event will now be held every two years, returning to Los Angeles in the spring of 2015.
Since 2011, the Spanish-language fair has been held in Los Angeles and underwritten by the Guadalajara International Book Fair, the largest fair in the Spanish-language book world, as well as the University of Guadalajara. When the Mexican government changed hands last year (Enrique Peña Nieto was sworn in as president in December 2012), funding to state universities was cut. Because some of LeaLA's funding is linked directly to the university's, it too experienced cutbacks.
"Even if LéaLA is taking more time to manage its processes and activities, we will keep our relationship with publishing houses and writers," said LéaLA’s general manager Catalina Rey-Sánchez. "It is them who have supported the event and the ones that bring the catalogs our guests look and attend the fair for."
Publishers and booksellers present at the 2013 fair included Random House, Penguin, Arte Público Press, Lectorum, Planeta, Santillana, Fondo de Cultura Economica, SM, Urano, Roca Editorial, Grupo Nelson, and Bridge Publications, and the printer/distributor BookMasters. It was also attended by a roster of influential Spanish-language authors, including Beatriz Riva, Paco Ignacio, and Daniel Krauze.
