Mitchell Kaplan Reflects on 40 Years of the Miami Book Fair

The way Mitchell Kaplan remembers it, Miami had a pretty bleak reputation around the time the first Miami Book Fair was held in 1984.

"It was a difficult period with the McDuffie riots, the cocaine culture, the Mariel boatlift. Time magazine had the cover calling Miami 'Paradise Lost' with a big question mark," he notes.

Kaplan was in his mid-twenties and had just opened his first Books & Books store in Coral Gables when he and a few other like-minded literature lovers decided to do something contrary to the narrative around their hometown.

"We had a Coral Gables festival of writers. A bookstore in South Miami, Bookmarks, had a used-book festival. The library system wanted to do something. Margarita Cano from the public library was a big supporter. Eduardo Padrón, from Miami Dade College, had attended the Barcelona Book Festival in Spain and wanted to do something similar to help bring attention to the campus," Kaplan remembers.

Those disparate forces from the public and private sectors got together to try to create something that at the time was unprecedented in the United States: a massive street fair dedicated to books.

"There was nothing like this in the country combining a street fair with authors. We were blazing a trail that other cities have since followed. Los Angeles viewed ours for many years before starting their own."

But before the Miami Book Fair could become an institution, it took a lot of convincing of the literati, the publishers, and the authors that Miami was a city to be taken seriously.

"We're talking before anyone knew about art deco, South Beach, or Miami Vice. I dealt with it at Books & Books as well.  They thought Miami was all older people waiting to die or for people on vacation who wanted beach reads. I knew with what books I was selling that Miami was as sophisticated a reading community as anywhere else."

Kaplan was in charge of programming the first fair, and he says it was no easy feat getting big names and respected authors to make the trip. But when the organizers and attendees saw the crowds flock to hear the esteemed man of letters, James Baldwin, speak in 1984, everyone involved knew they'd built something that had the potential for staying power.

While in some ways that inaugural Book Fair seems like it was just yesterday to Kaplan, looking at the list of featured authors from year one brings into focus how long 40 years ago was. "We had James Laughlin speak that year. His New Directions Press published Ezra Pound and William Carlos Williams all the way back in the 1930s."

Kaplan was amazed at all the important 20th-century authors who made their way to Miami. Ken Kesey. Toni Morrison. Saul Bellow. Susan Sontag. Joseph Heller. Allen Ginsberg. But he says it was a symbiotic relationship that worked both ways. The people of Miami got to get close to great literary minds, while writers got a chance to have their minds blown with inspiration by Miami.

"Writers were discovering Miami for the first time, and when they went home, they wrote about Miami. Marek Halter came from France and then wrote a five-page spread in Le Monde about Miami. Joan Didion wrote her book about Miami after speaking at the Book Fair. People say that Art Basel is what showed the world that Miami is a sophisticated city, and I love Art Basel, but we were here first," Kaplan says.

The Book Fair isn't just for the sophisticates and the elite; it's intended to be for everyone. The event features Spanish-language authors, writers from the Caribbean, and plenty of events aimed at children.

The fair's current executive director, Lissette Mendez, started attending the Book Fair as a teenager growing up in Miami Beach. "When I was 16, I took the bus over the bridge, and it was amazing as a book lover that you could meet all these authors," she says. Over 20 years, Mendez has worked her way up to be in charge. One of her missions has been to make the fair as inclusive as possible. "We try to connect people through books. Everyone talks about how polarized our country is. But I think our Book Fair is a place where it's easy to be together," she adds.

A major change over the Book Fair's four decades is an increase in programming for children and young adults. "On the first day, Friday, we used to bring only a few hundred students from schools. This year, we'll have over 6,000 students," Mendez says, adding that the fair would have hosted even more local students if it wasn't for a districtwide school bus shortage.

Kaplan believes that with people like Mendez and current Miami Dade College president Madeline Pumariega at the helm, the Miami Book Fair is in good hands. Though he hesitates to guarantee it will last another 40 years, he is confident about its present state. "I'm exceedingly optimistic the Book Fair will stay a driver in the community. I have a hard time predicting 40 years from now, but I think physical books will still be around, and people, not AI, will still be writing them."

He pauses to allow himself to get a little imaginative with what a Miami Book Fair in 2062 might look like.

"Will it be virtual? Will people put something around their eyes and gather in a virtual meeting place? I don't know. But I think people will want to gather in some way around books. I call books 'empathy machines.' We knew when first starting the Book Fair that hearing other people's stories would bring the community together and allow them to hear stories that are different from their own. In times like these especially, we really need to understand each other's stories."

Miami Book Fair. Sunday, November 12, through Sunday, November 19, at Miami Dade College Wolfson Campus, 300 NE Second Ave., Miami; miamibookfair.com. Ticket prices vary; general admission to the street fair costs $10, and author talks are included.