Santo Domingo International Book Fair draws crowds with vibrant cultural program

Santo Domingo.- The Santo Domingo International Book Fair 2025 (FILSD 2025) is drawing record crowds and an atmosphere of enthusiasm at the Juan Pablo Duarte Cultural Plaza, with weekday attendance surpassing expectations. Dedicated to historian Frank Moya Pons, the fair runs until October 5 and brings together 39 national publishers, 24 international exhibitors, and dozens of participants across 15 themed pavilions, three conference halls, two auditoriums, and 123 exhibition spaces. This year’s guest of honor, the Latin American Network of Literary Fairs and Festivals, has fostered a vibrant exchange between Dominican and international writers and publishers.

One of the most visited spaces is the El Rincón del Libro Pavilion, which hosts 20 traditional booksellers offering both new and used titles. Visitors have shown strong demand for self-help bestsellers like The 48 Laws of Power by Robert Greene and Atomic Habits by James Clear, while works by Dominican authors such as Juan Bosch and Joaquín Balaguer remain perennial favorites. Young readers, meanwhile, have gravitated toward classics like The Diary of Anne Frank and works by Paulo Coelho, Isabel Allende, and Mario Vargas Llosa. Booksellers anticipate even larger crowds over the weekend.

The fair also emphasizes children’s and young adult literature, with 91 schools and more than 10,500 students participating in just one day, reinforcing its mission to cultivate reading from an early age. Alongside more than 600 scheduled activities, highlights include the National Visual Arts Biennial exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art and the continuation of the Bonolibro program, which distributed 21,000 free books last year.