If one day the warehouses of cultural institutions and government bodies in Ecuador were to be opened, it would be a scandal to discover the number of books that, like the Sleeping Beauty of the stories, are sleeping because of the curse. In Perrault’s famous story, the evil witch took revenge for not being invited to the princess’s first birthday, so she announced that the girl would prick her finger with a needle at the age of 15. It happens as it is: the princess stabs herself and sleeps for a hundred years until, as the stories say, the prince comes to wake her up.

In the true story of books published by cultural institutions in Ecuador, they are still sleeping in warehouses and, of course, there will be no prince to wake them up and release them into circulation. Those who always arrive are bureaucrats on duty – either from the same institutions or from the Ministry of Culture – who justify their incompetence with shabby arguments and who do not lift a finger to unblock this absurd ban on the sale of books published by the Government. entities. The bureaucratic labyrinth is frankly ridiculous: bookstores are not granted minimum credit options, nor more flexible payment terms, which prevents them from buying. The specter surrounding this and other bans is the fear that officials, or the institutions themselves, could profit from the sale of their books. I would like it to be like this: corruption is not so culturally sophisticated, because the public coffers are looted directly, and even less they will worry about making money from the distribution of books.

Apart from the inconvenience and clumsiness of this approach to institutional books, it should be noted that the level of quality of the Ecuadorian edition is very high. Which makes the scenario more dramatic. With the supposed counterpart that these books can be donated, that they are freely available to Ecuadorian readers, what ends up happening is that the books go from one warehouse to another and their journey is invisible. It is claimed that the books are put up for sale in occasional bookstores of the houses of culture that publish them, which eventually becomes a kind of small tomb for books. They must circulate freely and, yes, enter the commercial circuit, where they can find an opportunity for expansion that a single outlet will never achieve.

The situation in Ecuador for his editorial production is still dramatic. Despite the disinterested passion of a few careful publishers, marketing support is lacking starting with these institutional publications. Above all, it is regrettable that there is no movement aimed at unlocking the barriers set up by laws and regulations, closing the encounter between editorial production and domestic readers. Recently, the Benjamín Carrión Cultural Center, which previously had a solvent and continuous editorial tradition, under the experience of a diligent editor like Raúl Pacheco, published a collection of essays that includes exemplary anthologies not only of Ecuadorian authors, but also of other nationalities that do not circulate freely in the country, such as Mario Montalbetti or Marine Garcés. These titles could be withdrawn free of charge from the premises of the Cultural Center. They’re probably already done. In any case, they are impossible to find in the main Ecuadorian bookstores. This temporary, short-lived life of these books is part of the drama. When they should be available without restrictions.

One of the main problems this uncertain policy towards institutional publications is a mixture of paternalism and ideological virtuosity that leads nowhere. The demonization of the publishing market, even with the reduced space that the Ecuadorian market has, in the end nullifies or makes invisible all those editorial efforts of intellectuals, writers and managers who see their work locked in endless warehouses – and I do not want to highlight only those from Quito – and that will probably never see the light again. The big problem is that the Ecuadorian publishing culture moves between limited groups who are the only ones who have access to books. The fact is that if the same authors do not give away their books to their friends and readers, it is practically impossible to find out about these publications. This creates difficulties with the larger number of international scholars on Ecuadorian culture. As generations of Peruvianists, Mexicanists, Cubanists, and Colombianists increase and renew, researchers of Ecuadorian culture end up becoming rare, occasional, or simply non-existent in international academic circles. And that this does not mean that the solution is to spend other state resources on publishing abroad. Instead, it is necessary to join forces, for the Ecuadorian Literary Chamber and the provincial and national bodies to join forces – and not fall into the absurdity of, for example, separate book fairs due to the lack of agreement – and books can get into the right hands at affordable prices. The problems are not just for institutional publishers. University presses are also suffering, not to mention small independent publishers. Until when will organizations that should cooperate, such as ministries, chambers and cultural centers, meet once and for all, unlock restrictions and overcome inertia under the usual excuses? I have pointed out more than once that there is no government policy of Ecuador regarding the book. Until this is corrected, the publishing culture continues to wander with various politicians and officials who continue to think of the book as a decorative, complementary, gift detail, rather than as one of the fundamental agents that make it all visible. .a cultural effort that continues to work in the shadows, or that is forced to escape to international publishing spaces, with greater diffusion, with the loss that this means for the Ecuadorian reader. (OR)