The Taiwan Creative Content Agency (TAICCA) is for the first time participating in Mexico’s Guadalajara International Book Fair to promote Taiwanese content in the Spanish-language publishing market.
Better known as the FIL, which is short for La Feria Internacional del Libro de Guadalajara, the book fair is the most important event in the Spanish-language publishing industry, and second in scale only to the Frankfurt Book Fair in Germany, the agency said on Saturday.
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, this year’s FIL, the 34th edition, was turned into an online event, it said.
Photo: AFP
The FIL opened on Saturday and is to run until Monday next week, the agency said.
The agency said that it partnered with the Taipei Book Fair Foundation to help 54 publishers present information on 176 titles in the FIL’s official catalog.
To improve the promotion of Taiwanese content in the Spanish-language publishing market, the agency also set up a virtual Taiwan Pavilion in Spanish (taiwan-filguadalajara2020.taicca.tw), produced a video introducing Taiwanese publishing and created a series of animated commercials for selected books, it said.
“As online editions of exhibitions become the norm, TAICCA has continuously promoted Taiwan’s publishing works to every corner of the world,” it said.
The theme of the virtual pavilion is “Lo pequeno es grande,” or “Small is Big,” which was also the theme of Taiwan’s online participation at the Frankfurt Book Fair last month, the agency said.
TAICCA said it has observed that the Spanish-language publishing market favors works with diverse graphic styles, and thus recommended a list of picture books and graphic novels on topics ranging from child development to dreams.
An online catalog (publication.taicca.tw/book/18) of all the titles presented at the FIL — including open-call selections and winners of the Golden Tripod Awards, the Golden Comic Awards and the Golden Butterfly Awards — is available in the virtual pavilion, it said.
The video, which is available on the agency’s YouTube channel, features footage from major publishing industry events in Taiwan, including the Taipei International Book Exhibition, the Wordwave Festival and the Golden Comic Awards ceremony, it said.
The animated commercials, which were made in collaboration with director Gooshun Wang (王谷神), are each 10 to 15 seconds long and aim to attract international buyers and expand the visibility of Taiwanese content overseas, it said.
The FIL has grown rapidly in the past five years, the agency said, adding that the number of participating publishers has grown from about 1,900 to 2,417, while attendance has increased from 720,000 to nearly 850,000.
“There is a large Spanish readership worldwide, and the FIL is one of the top Spanish publishing markets,” agency President Lolita Hu (胡晴舫) said.
The agency looks forward to improving understanding of Taiwanese culture within the Spanish-language publishing industry, and showcasing Taiwan’s diverse publishing landscape, she said.
Once the pandemic subsides, the agency hopes to send Taiwanese publishers to participate in the FIL in person, the agency said.
Two US House of Representatives committees yesterday condemned China’s attempt to orchestrate a crash involving Vice President Hsiao Bi-khim’s (蕭美琴) car when she visited the Czech Republic last year as vice president-elect. Czech local media in March last year reported that a Chinese diplomat had run a red light while following Hsiao’s car from the airport, and Czech intelligence last week told local media that Chinese diplomats and agents had also planned to stage a demonstrative car collision. Hsiao on Saturday shared a Reuters news report on the incident through her account on social media platform X and wrote: “I
SHIFT PRIORITIES: The US should first help Taiwan respond to actions China is already taking, instead of focusing too heavily on deterring a large-scale invasion, an expert said US Air Force leaders on Thursday voiced concerns about the Chinese People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) missile capabilities and its development of a “kill web,” and said that the US Department of Defense’s budget request for next year prioritizes bolstering defenses in the Indo-Pacific region due to the increasing threat posed by China. US experts said that a full-scale Chinese invasion of Taiwan is risky and unlikely, with Beijing more likely to pursue coercive tactics such as political warfare or blockades to achieve its goals. Senior air force and US Space Force leaders, including US Secretary of the Air Force Troy Meink and
‘BUILDING PARTNERSHIPS’: The US military’s aim is to continue to make any potential Chinese invasion more difficult than it already is, US General Ronald Clark said The likelihood of China invading Taiwan without contest is “very, very small” because the Taiwan Strait is under constant surveillance by multiple countries, a US general has said. General Ronald Clark, commanding officer of US Army Pacific (USARPAC), the US Army’s largest service component command, made the remarks during a dialogue hosted on Friday by Washington-based think tank the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Asked by the event host what the Chinese military has learned from its US counterpart over the years, Clark said that the first lesson is that the skill and will of US service members are “unmatched.” The second
Czech officials have confirmed that Chinese agents surveilled Vice President Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) during her visit to Prague in March 2024 and planned a collision with her car as part of an “unprecedented” provocation by Beijing in Europe. Czech Military Intelligence learned that their Chinese counterparts attempted to create conditions to carry out a demonstrative incident involving Hsiao, which “did not go beyond the preparation stage,” agency director Petr Bartovsky told Czech Radio in a report yesterday. In addition, a Chinese diplomat ran a red light to maintain surveillance of the Taiwanese