Sponsored by the Onelio Jorge Cardoso Literary Formation Center, the meeting will extend until Friday, March 28 to search for common alternative means, "beyond geographic limitations and the publishing market laws."

The opening ceremony of the International Young New Narrator Festival will be held at the Che Guevara hall of Casa de las Americas and will be a responsibility of Venezuelan Luis Brito, who will tackle the issue Our Literature.

Chilean Sergio Gomez, finalist of for the 2007 Planeta Award, will give a lecture entitled "The Sinister Publishing Market against Defenseless Literature (new)."

Outstanding Argentinian narrator Liliana Heker and her compatriot Samanta Schweblein, winner of the 2008 Casa De las Americas Award, with her book "La Furia de las Pestes" (The Fury of Plagues), will be among the guest writers.

Mexican Bernardo Fernandez, Chilean Gianfranco Rolleri, Colombian Luis F. Charry, Bolivian William Camacho, Cubans Ana Lidia Vega Serova, Delis Gamboa and Francis Sanchez, and other young new writers will also participate as guests.

During the meeting, which will be open to the public, there will be masterly lectures, debates about the trends of literary creation in the area, and the role of writers, faced with the current situation in Latin America.

Simultaneously, the participants will read their texts; there will be talks and round tables, exhibitions and sales of books by foreign writers, and meetings with young filmmakers, theater professionals, dancers, and musicians from the Island.

The festival is sponsored by the Venezuelan ALBA Cultural Fund, the Swiss COSUDE Collaboration Agency, and the Dutch Hivos Organization.

Writer Eduardo Heras Leon, director of the Onelio Jorge Cardoso Literary Formation Center, will be in charge of the festival's closing ceremony

(ACN)