Antonio Ramírez

Invitado de Honor

Born in Medellín, Colombia, in 1959, he began his university studies in his hometown, first in Engineering and later in Economics and Finance. He continued his studies at the Faculty of Economic Sciences at UNAM in Mexico City. In this city, he started working as a bookseller at El Juglar bookstore in 1980 and later at Librerías Gandhi. In 1985, he moved to Barcelona, where he has lived since then. He studied Anthropology and History at the University of Barcelona.

Between 1987 and 1994, he worked at Librería Laie, serving as its director from 1991 to 1994. In 1991, he took professional development courses at ASFODELP in Paris. In 1995, he co-founded La Central with Marta Ramoneda, a company he has directed ever since. In 2004, he participated in the founding of Editorial Arcadia, which publishes both Catalan and Spanish, and served on its editorial board until 2018. Between 2013 and 2019, he was part of the editorial board of the magazine La Maleta de Portbou.

From 1998 to 2005 and from 2018 to 2022, he was a board member of the Gremi de Llibreters. From 2017 to 2022, he served as vice president of the Consell de Cultura de Barcelona, an advisory body of the Barcelona City Council. Since 1998, he has been a lecturer in the Master’s in Publishing program at UPF BSM and is a regular professor at the Escola de Llibreria of the University of Barcelona. He has also been a visiting professor at the Scuola per Librai Umberto e Elisabeta Mauri in Venice, Italy, and has served as a juror for the Premis Ciutat de Barcelona and the Grand Prix Livres Hebdo des Librairies (2019) in France.

César Aguilar

He holds a degree in Accounting from the Universidad Intercontinental and a master's degree in Management from the Universidad del Valle de México. He served as General Manager of the Fondo de Cultura Económica in Guatemala and Bogotá, and as Project Manager for the Arnaldo Orfila Reynal bookstore in Buenos Aires. With over 30 years of experience in the public and private publishing sectors across Mexico City, Monterrey, Guatemala, Bogotá, Buenos Aires, and Panama, he has played a significant role in various projects.

Notably, he coordinated the establishment of the Centro Cultural Gabriel García Márquez in Bogotá and was awarded the Order of Tlatelolco by the Mexican Foreign Ministry for his cultural management abroad. He was a board member of the Gremial de Editores de Guatemala from 2004 to 2007 and of the Cámara Colombiana del Libro from 2007 to 2011. From September 2012 to 2019, he was the Deputy Director of Linkage at the General Directorate of Publications and Editorial Promotion at UNAM. He is currently the General Manager of the Panamanian bookstore chain El Hombre de la Mancha. From 2017 to 2020, he taught courses in Accounting, Management, Marketing, and International Relations at the Universidad Intercontinental in Mexico City.

Natalia Miranda

She is a bookseller and editor with over 20 years of solid experience in the book world. She graduated in Literature and as an Editor from the Faculty of Philosophy and Letters at the University of Buenos Aires. Throughout her career, she has held key roles including Sales Coordinator at the Fondo de Cultura Económica in Argentina, Manager of Librería Universitaria Argentina, and Bookstore Coordinator at FCE Colombia. She has also represented several Argentine publishers in sales.

She is the founder of Libros del Arrabal, a small but influential bookstore located in the Liniers neighborhood of Buenos Aires. An active member of the Board of Directors of the Cámara Argentina de Librerías Independientes (CALI), she also collaborates with the Red Latinoamericana de Librerías Independientes (RELLI), where she works with colleagues to strengthen the role of bookstores in the community and promote a love for books.