|
|
ARGENTINA: Book Distribution in Stadiums - a 'Novel' Project
By Marcela Valente
BUENOS AIRES, Oct 28, 2003 (IPS) - Fans in Argentina's football stadiums will now
have a new activity during half-time: reading short stories by local
writers, handed out as part of an innovative initiative aimed at calming
tempers, which often flare up during games, while boosting the reading
habit.
The initial response to the ''When You Read, You Always Win'' project,
organised by the Education Ministry with the support of the Argentine
Football Association, local football clubs, publishing houses and the print
media, ''has been extraordinary, and has surpassed all our expectations,''
Margarita Eggers, the coordinator of the project, told IPS.
The initiative is designed to encourage people to read, and to curb
violence in stadiums. It involves handing out free booklets containing short
stories by prominent local authors as people file into the stadiums.
Education Minister Daniel Filmus was afraid the booklets would end up as
confetti littering the fields, but that was not a problem.
''I don't know if everyone will read the stories, but no one would want
to throw the book away, because it's attractive, and if anybody leaves it on
their seat, someone else will grab it, either for themselves or to give away
as a gift,'' Horacio Pierini, a fan at the San Lorenzo stadium, where the
project was officially launched Sunday, commented to IPS.
The booklets will be handed out at the Opening Tournament's First
Division A matches. A different eight to 12-page short story involving
football will be distributed on each day of the tournament. Many prestigious
writers in Argentina have written about football, the national sport.
Over the weekend, 50,000 booklets were distributed in five stadiums, and
the plan is for the number of copies to grow to 500,000 by the end of the
tournament, including a special edition featuring stories by Argentine
literary greats Jorge Luis Borges and Adolfo Bioy Casares, to be handed out
at the Argentina-Bolivia match in mid-November.
The project was given a warm reception. Over the next few weeks, books on
a variety of issues will begin to be distributed in bus stations and
hospital waiting rooms.
''We didn't find any torn-up books on the field, or left behind in the
stands after the games, and the only complaints we received were from people
who did not get a free copy, or from clubs where we didn't hand out
booklets,'' said Eggers.
Requests for books also came from clubs outside of the first division,
and from football schools.
''The main thing is for people to read, because if people are reading,
they have a constructive, not destructive, attitude,'' said Eggers.
A sports journalist consulted by IPS agreed that the booklets were
well-received, and that they toned down the climate in the stands during the
15-minute half-time. ''Thing were quieter, and there were more people
sitting down than standing,'' he said.
But he added that a few copies did end up as confetti.
The first story distributed was ''The Longest Penalty Kick in the
World'', by Osvaldo Soriano. The writer, who died in 1997, was an ardent fan
of the San Lorenzo club, in whose stadium the project was launched.
The humorous story relates the vicissitudes and feelings of a striker and
a goalkeeper who will face off in a penalty kick that has been postponed for
a week, when the game was suspended.
Upcoming booklets will include stories by local writers Roberto
Fontanarrosa, Alejandro Dolina, Eduardo Sacceri, Mempo Giardinelli, Inés
Fernández Moreno, Juan José Panno, Juan Sasturáin, and internationally
renowned Uruguayan writer Eduardo Galeano, with cover illustrations by
Argentine artists.
The publishing houses have waived copyright payments, to support the
project.
Taking part in the official launch of the project at the San Lorenzo
stadium was Argentine author Ernesto Sábato, 92, a winner of the Cervantes
Literature Prize.
Accompanied by Filmus, football players, and reporters, Sábato said that
''Since my school-boy days, books have been for me a doorway to life and a
refuge where I calm my tormented soul.
''Reading transformed my life. That's why I have come here to support
this initiative in favour of books,'' added the author of ''On Heroes and
Tombs''.
Eggers said that since the booklets are small and light-weight, they will
not be used as projectiles, which are sometimes thrown at the heads of
players on rival teams or at referees.
The cost of producing each copy was less than four cents of a dollar,
paid for by the Education Ministry with logistical support from football
clubs.
A total of 148 people have been killed in football-related incidents in
this Southern Cone country of 37 million. The biggest tragedy occurred on
Jun. 23, 1968, when 71 people were trampled to death as a crowd surged
against a door in the River Plate stadium that failed to open.
Since 1990, violence among fans or between fans and police has increased,
and the growing number of people injured or killed in such incidents in or
near stadiums has led many parents to stop taking their children to the
games, a national past-time.
Fans at the San Lorenzo stadium also learned about other works by
Soriano, like ''Winter Quarters'' or ''No More Grief or Oblivion'', his most
widely-read books, the titles of which appeared on the dust jacket of the
booklet distributed on Sunday.
''The publishing houses see this as a good way to motivate readers to
seek out works by the same author,'' said Eggers.
At bus stations, the project will hand out books containing stories on a
variety of subjects, all of which will be ''light, appropriate for
vacation-reading,'' she explained.
In hospital waiting rooms, people will be able to place the booklets back
in the special boxes to be set out, ''although of course we won't be
offended if anyone wants to take them home,'' said Eggers.
(END)
|
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
What is RSS?
