Buenos Aires: City of Books

Buenos Aires is the birthplace of many a prominent writer, but it takes a visit to fully unveil the enduring love of reading in South America’s city of books.

Godfather of Argentine literature, Jorge Luis Borges famously said, “Let others pride themselves about how many pages they have written; I’d rather boast about the ones I’ve read.”

And read is what the Argentines do — on the bus, in the park, and in the myriad bookstores that are as plentiful as pharmacies and supermarkets in the capital city.

A ‘Culture of Reading’

Literary sustenance for the soul in Buenos Aires is not limited to an insubstantial diet of romance novels and bestsellers — though those can certainly be found — but consists largely of dense literary and philosophical works of the likes of Foucault, Nietzsche, Arendt, Shakespeare, Joyce, as well as the Argentine heavy-weights — Borges, Julio Cortázar, Ernesto Ernesto Sábato and José Hernández.

It is impossible to meander through the Buenos Aires without noticing the abundance of bookworms.

“Just look around on the subway and count how many people have a book,” says Florencia Basile, of La Porteña Books in Belgrano. “From ages 20 to 60, people read a lot here — there is a culture of reading.”

Buenos Aires’ Main ‘Book Streets’

Wrapped in plastic to discourage sneak previews and summer rains, tomes grace the shelves of street side dispensaries, subway station kiosks of all the metro lines, and some of the grandest bookstores in the world, such as the opulent bookstore, El Ateneo, which is located in a former opera house.

One testament to Buenos Aires’ love of literature is found right in the heart of Palermo, at Plaza Italia.

Right outside the Plaza Italia subway stop visitors can find 40+ stalls of new and second-hand books to take on the train, because reading a book on public transport is much safer and cooler than playing on your cellphone.

Corrientes Avenue, the main thoroughfare of Buenos Aires’ theater district, is a also favored destination for late-night book browsing. Where else in the world can one peruse the shelves at 3:00 a.m. after having a late night porteño-style pizza nearby?

Latin American’s ‘Literary City’

Argentina leads Latin America in publishing, with over 20,000 titles released in the country per year. Buenos Aires is blessed with over 800 bookstores, the majority of them independently owned.

In 2011 UNESCO awarded Buenos Aires the title of ‘World Book Capital,’ in recognition of its many high quality projects and activities involving books and reading.

The high point of these world-class programs is the yearly Feria Internacional del Libro de Buenos Aires (The International Book Fair) held from mid-April to early May.

For those already so inclined, embrace and enjoy wandering the aisles of books and the streets of ready-made benches.

For all others, let the Latin American bookworm bite and take a taste of the sumptuous, if old-fashioned, world of paper and print. –Alana Fichman

Ten Great Books To Read that Feature Buenos Aires

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Lively and melancholy, with famous avenues and historic buildings, Buenos Aires is a metropolis that lends itself as the setting for many wonderful books.

Most readers are already familiar with Argentina’s famous writers such as Cortazár and Borges, but there are many lesser-known great writers who’ve utilized Buenos Aires as a backdrop for their work, some of whose work has only recently been translated.

Title	Author	Genre	Description
Hopscotch	Julio Cortazár	Anti-novel/stream of consciousness/surrealist	An Argentine writer’s life between Paris and Buenos Aires. A book not necessarily meant to be read in chronological order, thus the title
Fictions	Jorge Luis Borges	Short story/fantasy/magic realism	The ultimate anthology of Borges’ fantastical short stories, which often draw comparisons to James Joyce
Things we Lost in the Fire	Mariana Enriquez	Psychological fiction/horror	Unsettling dark tales that highlight the corruption in contemporary Argentina
Of Heroes and Tombs	Ernesto Sabato	Magic realism/crime/historical	Partially based on a true crime story, this classic tome features a love story set against a backdrop of an authoritarian government
Thus Were Their Faces	Silvina Ocampo	Gothic/psychological fiction/magic realism	A collection of 30 of Ocampo’s surreal and sinister vignettes and short stories
Adam Buenosayres	Leopoldo Marechal	Absurdist-comedy/experimental	A quixotic roman-à-clef parable in which Buenos Aires is a central character
The Tango Singer	Tomás Eloy Martínez	Magical realism/literary	A PhD student travels to Buenos Aires to study Borges’ essays on tango but instead becomes enchanted with a mythical tango singer
The Seven Madmen	Roberto Arlt	Dystopian/ Psychological thriller	A thief and an astrologer embark on a masterplan to takeover Argentina, draws comparisons to Dostoyevsky
The Secret in Their Eyes (kindle edition)	Eduardo Sacheri	Suspense/Mystery/ historical fiction	A retired detective looks into an old case and becomes reacquainted with an old unrequited love. The movie is based on this book.
Bad Times in Buenos Aires	Miranda France	Travelogue/Social-historical narrative	A funny and accurate account of life in Buenos Aires in the 1990s by a British corespondent

• For those who don’t read Spanish, or need a break from second language overload, a modest selection of imported foreign titles are found scattered in kiosks and bookstores, and a few all-English bookstores, such as Kel and Walrus Books.

• Even if you don’t read Spanish, when in Argentina you won’t want to miss Buenos Aires’ most famous bookstore, and one of the world’s most beautiful, El Ateneo.

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