Caracas, July 14, 2024.- The Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America – People’s Trade Treaty (ALBA-TCP) raised its literary voice this Sunday at the International Book Fair of Venezuela, at the National Art Gallery in Caracas.
Jorge Arreaza presented three different books: “El desafío y el sentido histórico de la unidad” (The challenge and the historical meaning of unity- ALBA editions and Pueblos Institute); “Irreversibilidad… Como la luna llena. Crónica de la última proclama” (Irreversibility… Like the full moon. Chronicle of the last proclamation – Vadell publishers); and “La Alianza de Simón Bolívar” (The Alliance of Simón Bolívar – Vadell publishers). It is important to mention that the last two books were written by Arreaza.
Jorge Arreaza said that with the text The Challenge and the Historical Meaning of Unity, the regional bloc seeks to create content to support regional integration. “Each author who participated in this book, which was released in record time, a short pregnancy, but it was born with a lot of capacity to contribute, which is what we want to do from ALBA-TCP, create content to contribute to transformation and talk about the integration that we have been talking about for years.”
He emphasized that this text speaks of unity beyond the Alliance. “It is an advanced, anti-imperialist, decolonial proposal (…) This book is different from many points of view.”
On the other hand, Irene León, a sociologist and international political analyst from Ecuador, and one of the presenters of the book “The Challenge and the Historical Meaning of Unity,” asserted that unity is at the forefront of political debates and ALBA is the fundamental alternative for integration.
“Unity resurfaces as a priority. ALBA, conceived by Bolívar and Chávez, is an anti-systemic initiative, it is a proposal for integration within diversity”, she highlighted.
Irreversibility… Like the full moon
In a second moment, Jorge Arreaza presented his book “Irreversibility… Like the full moon. Chronicle of the last proclamation”, a work that describes his own experience with Commander Hugo Chávez, the most difficult days as leader of the Bolivarian Revolution, and how he suffered a serious illness.
In the pages of this book, Arreaza also recounts conversations with Commander Fidel Castro about Chávez’s health, complex medical treatments, among other topics. “That was very tough, it was December, we didn’t know if he would survive the operation, it was known that his life was at risk”, expressed Arreaza from the National Art Gallery.
Arreaza revealed that the President of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro Moros, asked him to write this story, “a testimony not from politics, but from the heart”.
Readers will be able to learn about everything Hugo Chávez experienced in Havana, Cuba, and later in Caracas, at the Military Hospital, in January 2013.
Regarding this story, Surirma Prieto, a community member from Bolívar state, commented on the text: “This book, I ask, should be in every heart of every Commune (…) I lived this book, I met Hugo Chávez thanks to Jorge Arreaza with this wonderful book.”
Meanwhile, the philosopher and director of the Pueblos Institute, Luis Berrizbeitia, shared that this book allows to build what Commander Hugo Chávez proposed for future generations. “Thank you, Jorge, for sitting down and writing it (…) And thank you very much, especially, to the Venezuelan people, to the community members, to all those who are in the spirit of this proclamation of Commander Hugo Chávez and that Jorge captures today”, he said.
The Alliance of Simón Bolívar
The FILVEN 2024 also hosted and was the setting for the baptism of the book “The Alliance of Simón Bolívar“, where Arreaza highlighted that this work was written using the method of the teacher Simón Rodríguez: “the school for everyone”.
He explained that this edition is written in a non-conventional way. Without periods in some paragraphs, messages with drawings, and the use of capital letters in a diverse and unexpected manner. “You will be able to see, from pages 52-53, that it is written in a non-traditional way, the Simón Rodríguez’ method”.
On the other hand, he said that “The Alliance of Simón Bolívar” also promotes unity as the only way for the defense and projection of the region against the onslaught of capitalism and American imperialism.
Nelson Chávez, a researcher at the Samuel Robinson Institute for Original Thought, stated that in this book, the author’s attempt, his proposal is to try to make Simón Bolívar’s alliance speech “touch the heart of every reader”.
He emphasized that, “the Liberator will always need to be defended (…) The author brings us a new Liberator, a liberator who did not exist or who was getting shape in the songs with justice, with freedom, with greatness, with the beauty of the Liberator that had been hidden from us for 200 years.”
Similarly, Valentina Vadell, editor of Vadell Publishers, indicated that this second edition of the book “is to highlight the work done by Jorge Arreaza and democratize it so that everyone can have it.”
“Without a doubt, this book is inspired by Simón Rodríguez, and in which we all feel part of, which is Our America, that American union that the Liberator Simón Bolívar spoke so much about,” Vadell referred to when presenting this work, which she described as a historical manifesto.
