Editora Nacional Quimantú

Editora Nacional Quimantú was a Chilean publishing house created in 1971 by Salvador Allende's Unidad Popular government. It was founded under the premise of offering various literary works and a view of Chilean culture not covered by the "official bourgeois tradition" by then, at an accessible price for the country's working class.[2] Quimantú is mapuche for "sun of knowledge".[3]

Editora Nacional Quimantú
StatusDefunct (September 11, 1973 (1973-09-11))
Founded1971
FounderUnidad Popular
SuccessorEditorial Quimantú (2000[1] )
Country of originChile
DistributionNational
Key peopleJoaquín Gutiérrez - General Manager
Publication typesBooks and magazines
Nonfiction topicsNational Culture, History, Politics, Magazines for children, teens and women

Now refounded as Editorial Quimantú, it is in charge of "a group of people that decided that dreams aren't of much use if we don't try to make them a reality, belonging to social, cultural and political organizations in various sectors of Santiago de Chile."[4]

History

Foundation

Towards the end of 1970, the workers of Editorial Zig-Zag went on strike in order to push for the nationalization of their publishing house. On February 12, 1971, the Unidad Popular government took control of 40% of the company's assets, leading to the creation of the Empresa Editora Nacional Quimantú (National Quimantú Publishing Company, Ltd.). It was run by Joaquín Gutiérrez, a Costa Rican close to President Allende.

The books published by Quimantú were sold at very low prices in bookshops and newspaper kiosks, in order to effectively make culture more accessible to the people. Its catalogue included classical and contemporary works of literature, history, general information and original research. It also set up weekly and monthly magazines, including Cabrochico for children, Onda for young people, Barrabases, a comics magazine, Paloma for women and La Quinta Rueda, a cultural publication.[5]

Joaquín Gutiérrez once commented, on the influence of Quimantú:

The people were walking around with their little books in order to read them on buses. The care for culture that the workers developed over that time was beautiful. (...) We had managed to change the social connotations of having books, which until then had been the privilege of a cultural elite.[6]

Closure and refoundation

The Editora Nacional Quimantú was closed down after the 1973 Chilean coup d'état by the new authorities, and many of its books were burned. The following year, the military restarted a publishing house, named Editora Nacional Gabriela Mistral, but it went bankrupt ten years later and closed.[7]

In 1989, former general manager of the editorial Sergio Maurín came back from exile by the military regime and registered the name for ten years with the intention of "constituting it as an anonymous society and making it big" with other former members. The plan was abandoned upon realizing the high initial costs this implied, and its poor profitability due to the poor presence and management of bookstores and the public's lack of interest in reading.[1]

A decade later, the idea of making an alternative, popular editorial emerged in an "extraparliamentary left-wing collective", and thus the name Quimantú was registered again in 2000, and its first title, "Agenda del Che 2002", published in November 2001. The refounded company is currently managed by Mario Ramos, and books are distributed independently from traditional bookstores - as this would increase end consumer costs considerably - preferring popular fairs, including their own "Yo me libro".[1]

Collections

Editora Nacional Quimantú published a total of around 250 titles, of which it printed around 10 million copies, between November 1971 and August 1973. One year after its foundation, it published over 500 000 copies every month. Its collections included:

  • Quimantú para todos (Quimantú for all)
  • Minilibros (Minibooks: works of Chilean and world literature)[8]
  • Nosotros los chilenos (We, the Chileans)
  • Cuadernos de Educación Popular (Books for Popular Education)
  • Cuncuna (children's books)
  • Camino Abierto (Open Path)
  • Análisis, pensamiento y acción (Analysis, Thought, Action)
  • Clásicos del Pensamiento Social (Classics of Social Thought)
  • Figuras de América (Figures of America)
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References
  1. Fajardo, Marco. "Nueva Editorial Quimantú cumple una década". El Mostrador. Retrieved 1 March 2014.
  2. "Quimantú - Editora Nacional Quimantú". Quimantu.cl. Archived from the original on 2016-03-04. Retrieved 2016-01-21.
  3. "Exilio chileno, cultura y solidaridad internacional". Chile.exilio.free.fr. Retrieved 4 May 2011. (...) Como nombres alternativos para la nueva editorial se barajaron Quimantú y Camilo Henríquez, quedando con el primero, palabra que en mapudungún significa Sol del Saber (...) Translation: "(...) two alternative names came up for the new publishing house: Quimantú and Camilo Henríquez, and we decided on the first one, a word that in Mapuche means Sun of Knowledge (...)"
  4. "Quimantú - Quimantú Hoy". Quimantu.cl. Archived from the original on 2016-03-04. Retrieved 2016-01-21.
  5. "La Quinta Rueda (1972-1973) - Editorial Nacional Quimantú". Memoriachilena.cl. Retrieved May 4, 2011.
  6. Gómez, Andrés (28 December 1999). Joaquín Gutiérrez: "Hicimos la revolución del libro". La Tercera. Retrieved May 4, 2011.
  7. "Editorial Nacional Quimantú. Presentación". Memoriachilena.cl. Retrieved May 4, 2011.
  8. Minilibros (Quimantú) - Book Series List, publishinghistory.com. Retrieved 1 January 2020.
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