From October 20 to 22, Argentina took part in the third edition of the Ibero-American Literature Festival, organized by the Association of Ibero-American Cultural Attachés (AACIA). The festival consisted of three days of talks and debates featuring writers from the various countries that make up the AACIA.

Argentina participated in the second session, held at the Centro Cultural Español on Tuesday, October 21, with Argentine writer and translator Sergio Waisman, accompanied by Spanish novelist Juan Trejo, winner of the 2014 Tusquets Prize for La máquina del porvenir, and Guatemalan-American novelist Ana Lapera, winner of the International Latino Book Award for her book Mani Semilla encuentra su voz de quetzal.

Sergio Waisman has translated into English Los de abajo: novela de la Revolución Mexicana by Mariano Azuela; works by Juana Manuela Gorriti, Nataniel Aguirre, and Leopoldo Lugones for Oxford University Press; El limonero real by Juan José Saer; and three books by Ricardo Piglia. His book Borges and Translation: The Irreverence of the Periphery has been published in English, Spanish, and Italian. He received the National Endowment for the Arts Translation Award for his English translation of Ricardo Piglia’s La ciudad ausente.

In addition to El encargo, Waisman is the author of the novel Leaving, which he himself translated into Spanish and published in Argentina under the title Irse. He currently works as a professor of Latin American Literature at George Washington University.

On the opening day, the Ecuadorian Embassy hosted presentations by writers Victoria Buitron (Ecuador – poetry), Lorena Saavedra Smith (Peru – poetry), and Peruvian novelist Carlos Enrique Freyre Zamudio. The session was moderated by Kenia Basilis, journalist from Telemundo 44.

The closing event took place on Wednesday, October 22, at the Mexican Cultural Institute, featuring Mexican writer Natalia Toledo (poetry and Indigenous languages – Zapotec), and Chilean historian and writer Daniel Cano (Indigenous languages – Mapuche).