The Argentine who is causing controversy among the authors invited to the Bogotá Book Fair 2022

The Bogotá International Book Fair is probably one of the most anticipated events for the people of the capital so far in 2022. Since the pandemic began, as has happened with other massive events, it has not been able to return to face-to-face. It will finally do so this April and, little by little, the publishers are presenting the names of the authors who will be part of the big event. Names such as those of Mircea Cartarescu, Marcus Du Sautoy, and Meghan Cux Gordon stand out among the guests confirmed by the FIlBo organizers. But there is one in particular that is sounding more than all these days, and it is not even on the list that appears on the website of the event, It is Agustín Laje, the Argentine writer, political scientist and lecturer.

Laje became known for being the co-author of The Black Book of the New Left, a title in which he criticizes gender ideology and the third wave of faminism. He is founder and president of the Fundación Libre, a space to promote conservative ideology at its best. He has been repeatedly considered by the media in his country as far-right and homophobic, especially because of his sayings. He calls himself paleolibertarian, minarchist and anti-feminist. With the latter, from the outset, it is already understood why there is discord on the part of Colombian feminists who are part of the cultural sphere.

The Argentinian began writing about politics in 2006. He published a section of the newspaper La Nación called “Letter of Readers” in which he already allowed to see some sketches of his current thinking. Later he would write for other Argentinian and continental media. He studied Systems Engineering at the Aeronautical University Institute and while studying his degree, he published his first book: The Seventies Myths: Fundamental Lies About the 1970s. Degree that allowed him to obtain a scholarship to study counterterrorism at the William J. Perry Center of the National Defense University, in Washington, D.C.

Upon returning to his country, he abandoned his career and began studies in political science at the Catholic University of Córdoba. After graduating, in 2020 he graduated as a Master's Degree in Philosophy, from the University of Navarra. Other publications came along the way. Around 2013, together with the writer Nicolás Márquez, he published When the story is a farce, a criticism of Kirchner's government in which a vindication of the actions of the so-called “Dictatorship of the Process” is sought. At the time, the book was rejected by human rights organizations and organizations supporting trials for crimes against humanity.

In August 2018, in the middle of a conference with Nicolás Márquez, in a school in the province of Neuquén, he had a confrontation with students because of their statements about homophobia. He was repudiated for encouraging discrimination. Marquez said on that occasion: “Homophobia is an idiomatic construction of a pejorative nature to discredit anyone who thinks that a man dressed as a woman is not a woman.”

Recently, confirmed by his editorial, but not by the organizers of the FilBo, the author has triggered a series of comments that oppose its inclusion in the poster of writers who will be part of the event. The first to speak out was the writer Vanessa Rosales, a columnist for El Espectador, who expressed her disagreement on her Twitter account.

Gloria Susana Esquivel, author of Animals at the End of the World, also referred to the Argentine author, replicating Rosales' tweet, and wrote:

For their part, different comments, both by men and women, have made it possible to see that there is a division between those who believe that the author has the right to be here and those who do not endorse his participation.

So far, the Bogotá International Book Fair has not delivered the official programming or the list of attendees. Given the real possibility that Laje is included, we could witness an interesting debate in the right space. Or, will it happen to older?

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