Renato Cisneros: a bridge of words at FILCO 2025
FILCO 2025 literary event
In the vibrant heart of Columbus, Ohio, where diversity pulses with a Latin accent and literature rises as a banner of identity, the Columbus International Book Fair (FILCO) 2025 prepares to write an indelible page in the cultural history of our community.
Under the noble sponsorship of the Ohio Writers Association (AEO), this meeting will be even more memorable thanks to the special participation of the acclaimed Peruvian writer Renato Cisneros, whose presence will illuminate the days of Saturday, September 13 at the Columbus Metropolitan Library.
The living heritage of the word: who is Renato Cisneros
Heir to a deep literary tradition and a family history that has marked his work, Renato Cisneros (Lima, 1976) is one of the most recognized authors of contemporary literature in Spanish. A journalist by training and a novelist by vocation, Cisneros has known how to intertwine, like an artisan of time, the strands of personal memory with the invisible threads of collective history.
His most celebrated novel, The Distance That Separates Us, a finalist for the Vargas Llosa Novel Prize and translated into several languages, not only revealed his exceptional talent for exploring the shadowy areas of memory, but also gave him a prominent place among the most influential Latin American writers of his generation. Works such as Someday I’ll Show You the Desert, The Year of the Wind, and his recent You Will Leave the Earth confirm that we are dealing with a narrator who is not afraid to look into the wounds of his time, nor to illuminate the secrets of the human soul with sober, intense and deeply moving prose.
A keen journalist, columnist in renowned media such as El Comercio, El País and Gatopardo, Cisneros represents a critical, but also deeply empathetic, voice towards the dilemmas of our present. His gaze, as lucid as it is compassionate, will undoubtedly be one of the great gifts that FILCO 2025 will offer its visitors.
FILCO 2025: a celebration of the living word
FILCO 2025 is not a mere book meeting: it is a festival of the spirit, an agora where the Spanish language sings, dialogues and dreams.
With more than 25 Latin authors from different latitudes – from the Andean lands to the Caribbean coasts, from Mexican cities to Central American coffee plantations, this event is emerging as one of the most relevant in the Latin cultural panorama of the United States.
The choice of Renato Cisneros as special guest honors not only his literary career, but also his ability to build bridges between generations, between dispersed memories, between geographies divided by exile and time.
Your participation will include:
Master conference on the art of narrating memory.
Book signing and close conversation with attendees.
Dialogue table with prominent local and national authors.
All of this under the majestic roof of the Columbus Metropolitan Library, an architectural icon and beacon of knowledge in our city.
A journey that began before: FILCO 2024 as a prologue
FILCO 2024, held in October of last year, marked a milestone for the AEO and for the Latin literary community. More than an event, it was an act of cultural resistance and linguistic affirmation: dozens of readers, writers and editors gathered to embrace our common language, that portable homeland that we carry in our hearts.
That meeting, full of readings, workshops and exciting presentations, sowed the seeds of what is now flourishing at FILCO 2025: a renewed commitment to opening spaces where literature in Spanish is not only read, but celebrated with joy and pride.
The AEO: custodians of the legacy and sowers of the future
Founded with the clear vision of disseminating literature in Spanish and giving a voice to Latino writers in the United States, the Ohio Writers Association has become a cultural stronghold.
Inspired by tradition, but attentive to the pulse of the present, its members understand that writing is, ultimately, an act of love and hope: a message sent through the years, like someone who throws a bottle into the sea, trusting that sometime, on some shore, a reader will pick it up and smile.
FILCO 2025 is, therefore, the materialization of that shared dream: a festival that not only honors established writers, but also bets on emerging voices, on new storytellers who today, from Ohio or from any corner of the continent, write the future chronicles of our identity.
Final invitation: let's celebrate together the miracle of the word
On Saturday, September 13, from 10:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m., the doors of the Columbus Metropolitan Library will be open to all those who love the word, to those who know that books are not inert objects, but palpitating hearts that beat in the hands of readers.
Admission is free.
Parking, free.
But the most valuable thing that each attendee will find will be intangible: the meeting with other dreamers, the spark of an unexpected idea, the emotion of a story that seems written for oneself.
As one of our great teachers would say, literature does not change the world, but it does change those who will change the world.
And that—let me say it with a knowing smile—is no small feat.
See you at FILCO 2025!
