I noticed that the 2007 edition of the Buenos Aires book fair already has its Web site up: Feria Internacional del Libro de Buenos Aires. It will run from April 16 to May 7.

I’m already excited.

Book production

Buried under the professional section of the site is a page about book production in Argentina. More than 21,000 titles were registered with Argentina agency of the ISBN during 2005, a 15% increase over 2004. Unfortunately, the stats don’t differentiate between new titles and reprints. So, it’s unclear exactly how many new titles are published.

By calculating the numbers on the book fair site, then the average print run for a book in Argentina was 3,520 in 2005. In reality, I suspect that most books receive even fewer printings here.

As for the type of books, 29% are fiction, 27% in the social sciences and the remainder in various non-fiction categories.

What about translations?

A footnote reveals that 4% of the titles were translated into Spanish from another language. So, I calculated that number to be 852 books for 2005. That strikes me as a very low number. Of those titles, 48% were from English, 13% from French, another 13% from Japanese, and around 4% each from German, Italian, and Portuguese. Oddly, 8% of the translated titles were indicated as being translated from Spanish. Huh? Perhaps it’s regional translations, making a book more suitable for readers in Buenos Aires than, say, Madrid. I don’t know.

It doesn’t mention how many of those translated titles are fiction and non-fiction. That would be interesting to know.

And, after just a bit more research, I found more statistics about book production in Argentina. I don’t have time to analyze those now but will post a summary later.

Continues part I….

Early 1800s a family of singers - husband, wife, brother-in-law - tour the north of Italy, stopping in Piacenza and Reggio Emilia. Performances are becoming more scare as their style of comic opera falls out of fashion for the serious, grander sounds of Rossini. The troupe hears about opportunities in the Americas. The voyage is difficult, still by sail not steam. They play before the royal court in Rio de Janeiro, then head south into the towns of the Rio de la Plata.

The Buenos Aires that they find is not the pseudo-European capital of the later 18th century. The immigration boom has not yet arrived. Early opera productions are not full-length performances, just selections, highlights. Roles depend upon availability, a baritone sings the part of the tenor, a contralto passes herself off as a soprano. This singing family decides to settle in the area eventually becoming teachers, instructing others in the art of music.

The pattern of a family troupe traveling to South America from Italy was repeated throughout the early parts of the 1800s. The singers who came to Argentina in that time were never the leading performers. Buenos Aires received only the ones whose careers were fading, that never really got started, or that were just attempting to make a name for themselves.

Teresa Schieroni and Margherita Garavaglia are two such singers who arrived in Buenos Aires in the late 1820s. From here they traveled on to Chile and Peru before making their way across the Pacific to performances in south Asia. The women were to sail on to Calcutta but there are no reports of their arrival. Like most of us, the pair simply disappeared from history.

Some of the early singers may, in fact, have had very good voices but the opera profession in Italy, then as now, was overcrowded and competitive. Separate circuits developed for Central America and the Caribbean. European performers who traveled to Havana and Caracas rarely made their way to the southern part of the continent.

Serious opera in Buenos Aires languished until the 1850s, coinciding with the fall of Rosas. The mid-century century saw a new society emerging. In 1857 Buenos Aires opened the first Teatro Colón which featured Emma La Grua, one of the first top ranked singers to perform in Argentina. Opera season was starting in Buenos Aires.

What was opera in Buenos Aires like during the late 1800s? Coming in part III.

A fourteen-year-old Yiddish-speaking boy, born in a shtetl outside of Kiev, forced to work since the age of ten, is shot during the 1905 Russian revolution. Wounded, he spends six months in jail. Three years later he moves to Argentina to join his brother. Within a few months he leaves the Jewish neighborhood of Once, learns Spanish, finds non-Jewish roommates, and gets a job as a machinist in an Italian-owned metal shop. He frequents the Biblioteca Rusa where he absorbs the vigorous discussions promoting anarchism.

Barely a year after his arrival, this teenager witnesses the mayhem of the 1909 May Day demonstrations. The police fire upon the protesters. Anarchists shoot back. At least five dead and dozens wounded. The days that follow are a week of violent reprisals and protests. Semana Roja. Sixty thousand people march to the funerals for those who died on May 1. Riots continue along with demands for the removal of police chief Ramón Falcón.

Tensions continue throughout the year. The 17th of October 1909 starts a month of unparalleled anarchist activity in Buenos Aires. Two immigrants from Barcelona, a twenty-two year-old bricklayer and a bookbinder of the same age, place a bomb in front of the Spanish embassy. Two weeks later another young Russian immigrant attempts to detonate a bomb in the church outside Recoleta cemetery. Meanwhile, our teenager, Simon Radowitzky, closely follows the movements of the police chief.

14 November 1909, Colonel Falcón and his aide twenty-year-old Alberto Lartigau ride through Recoleta. As their car approaches the corner of Callao and Quintana, a bomb is thrown inside. The explosion follows. Neither man is killed instantly. Their injuries are severe. Both will die before nightfall.

Massive arrests follow, mostly Russians and Jews. Simon Radowitzky identified as the assasin. Confusion about his age. Confusion about his name, Radowitzky, Radowitsky, Radowisky. Citing the criminology of the day, the prosecution asserts that the defendant’s physical features, his forehead, his jawline, clearly indicate that he possesses criminal capabilities. Too young for the death penalty. Instead, Simon Radowitzsky is sentenced to life imprisonment.

The anarchist press idealizes Radowitzky, casting him as an icon who avenged the deaths of the workers. He becomes “el juisticiero,” the one who gives justice to the working class. Supporters plan bold attempts for his escape. January 1911 a tunnel is dug under the prison. Thirteen escape, including two would-be presidential assasins, but Radowitzky is delayed and misses the opportunity. Radowitzky is transferred to the prison in Ushuaia to forestall any other escape efforts.

Yet, seven years later, on the eve of the end of the first World War, he goes over the wall and catches a waiting schooner. Freedom is short, three weeks till Chilean authorities capture Radowitzky and return him to prison.

The iconography of Radowitzky continues through the 1920s. Leading anarchist writer Diego Abad de Santillan publishes a book in 1927 titled Simon Radowitzky, el vengador y el mártir. In 1930 Radowitzky is pardoned by Argentine president Hipólito Yrigoyen, a few months before the president is overthrown by a military coup.

Eventually making his way back to Europe, Radowitzky fights in the Spanish civil war. Simon Radowitzky spends the last years of his life, ill and poor, in Mexico where he dies in 1956.

(Further online reading includes Simón Radowitzky ¿mártir o asesino? by Osvaldo Bayer and a brief bio of Simon Radowitzky by Nick Heath).