Venegas Hosts Buenos Aires’ Bookstore Night

It shouldn’t come as a surprise if Julieta Venegas is curling up with a good book this Sunday…

The 42-year-old Mexican singer on Saturday night hosted the 6th Buenos Aires Bookstore Night, a celebration of books and their authors.

Julieta Venegas
Along with serving as the host, Venegas performed for an estimated audience of 40,000 at the literary event, organized by the Buenos Aires municipal government, on Corrientes Street, which runs through the cultural heart of the Argentine capital.

The evening’s program includes such noted authors as Ernesto Mallo, Gabriel Rolon, Claudia Piñero and Sergio Olguin, along with musicians, illustrators and artists.

Numerous bookstores also organized poetry readings and storytelling events, while the group Siempre de Viaje-Literatura en Progreso  has organized what it refers to as “literary bicycling.”

“Buenos Aires is one of the cities with the most bookstores per capita in the world,” the capital’s culture minister, Hernan Lombardi, said at the inauguration of Bookstore Night.

Lombardi also said that the Argentine capital “cultivates reading and creativity as one of its most symbolic activities.”

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, or UNESCO, designated Buenos Aires as World Book Capital 2011, citing the quality of its programs to promote book distribution, promote reading and grow the publishing industry.