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• Arts and Culture
• International
• Literature
• South America
• 03 / 26 / 2007

Venezuelan and Cuban writers ended on Friday a two-day meeting on regional integration and intellectuals participation in building socialism in Latin America, Prensa Latina news agency reported.

Venezuelan Culture Minister Francisco Sesto and his Cuban counterpart Abel Prieto attended the meeting. Sesto told Prensa Latina they had agreed to include writers from other nations at the next gathering.

«We wanted this second meeting to be a transition to a gathering of writers from all of Latin America and the Caribbean; already we had guest writers from Bolivia and Ecuador, and we want others to join», he said.

The Venezuelan minister explained that the Caracas encounter focused on a projected ALBA Literary Fund. The ALBA, or Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas, is a regional integration mechanism that among its objectives prioritizes culture and social development. The current member countries are Venezuela, Bolivia, Cuba and Nicaragua.

«The Fund is very ambitious, and we want to turn it into a key instrument for that Latin American integration,» said the minister.

The Literary Fund was established in 2006 by virtue of an agreement between presidents Fidel Castro and Hugo Chávez. It has already published 11 titles and more than 330,000 copies.

The Fund is intended to distribute books, set up libraries and publishing houses in the different countries and also distribute movies produced in the region.

Sesto said the more than 50 Cuban and Venezuelan writers at the meeting also discussed the building of socialism as seen by intellectuals.

Source: Juventud Rebelde