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Havana, May 24 (EFE).- Despite recent moves by the Communist government against other sectors of the island's small "self-employed" community, vendors of used books around one of this capital's most emblematic plazas are betting on staying put, saying their presence adds cultural cachet to the historic downtown.
Starting in the 1990s, the independent book dealers or street vendors proliferated on the island, especially in the capital, after being granted licenses to operate on their own, rather than working for the state.
The booksellers set up their wares in the park in the center of the Plaza de Armas, now also known as "La Plaza de los Libros" (Plaza of the Books).
Gloria Estrada loves books and was one of the first people to come here 12 years ago to sell them. She now has some 400 used volumes for sale.
"I was born among books. My mother is also a bookseller. This is the most important thing in my life. Books are my world," she told EFE while she was attending to a purchase by two German tourists.
Classics of world literature, volumes of natural history and the histories of Spain and Cuba, editions from the first few years of the 20th Century, well-bound and cared for over the years like real jewels are among the books she has for sale.
Estrada's prices range from $3 to more than $30, depending on the age and title.
She said she believes the presence of the book vendors is "the cheerful part of the plaza," but she added that the book buyers "follow (the sellers) to wherever they are."
Yet, the book vendors' position may not be all that secure after the government obliged independent craftsellers formerly catering to foreign tourists along the Malecon seaside boulevard to pack up and move to a more out-of-the-way building last month, resulting in a drastic drop in their sales and substantial uncertainty about their futures.
Those vendors say that the big problem now is that the tourists do not know they are there. The craftspeople working in Old Havana have not been pulled out yet, but they are concerned about the possibility of an imminent move.
A few meters away from Estrada on the Plaza de los Libros, a husband and wife team - Alejandro and Rachel - arrange their wares in a three-meter-wide (about 32 feet) space which they rent for $2.75 per day at the Havana Historian's Office.
Rachel is a lawyer by training and Alejandro an aviation mechanic, but they give no thought to returning to their former professions because "we're used to this. We love it, and we don't see any better economic option, although at times we don't make anything at all," they said.
The couple pay a $27 monthly tax to operate as independent vendors and, according to their calculations, each day they operate their kiosk they spend about $14 on transportation, food, the sales space rent and storage for their merchandise.
At present, they are going through a "low point" in their sales because, they say, after Holy Week the flow of tourists - their main customers - slacks off.
"We live from sales to the tourist ... who is traveling around on his own ... looking for nice, picturesque things, like books being sold on the street ... in the open air," they said.
The vendors offer Cuban novels, books of photographs of the island, texts on medicine, cooking, Cuban and Spanish law, art books, including old editions from the Soviet Union, magazines and other items.
"Don Quixote," by Miguel de Cervantes, the diary of Argentine-Cuban guerrilla Ernesto "Che" Guevara and the Cuban 19th Century novel "Cecilia Valdes" are among the most requested titles by the book buyers on the Plaza de los Libros.
Miguel Luna, a retired military engineer, set himself up in the used book business in 1995 at the entrance of the City Museum and today displays some 300 titles from a collection that approaches 1,000 volumes.
"I've always enjoyed reading and literature is something along those lines, which has helped me to manage this business - which I don't plan to quit - despite the sun, the rain and the wind we have to put up with. This is a perfect spot, the most important historic and tourist location in Havana," he said.
Government estimates are that about half the tourists who visit Cuba spend some time in Havana, which generates 45 percent of the island's tourist income.
The move of the Malecon craftsellers comes amid a full-tilt government campaign against corruption and, to a lesser extent, private enterprise begun in November, when Fidel Castro declared an assault on both corruption and "parasites" to prevent the undermining of his 47-year-old Communist political, social and economic project.
Castro placed a portion of the blame for corruption in Cuba on the so-called "special period in a time of peace," a time after the fall of the Soviet bloc in which the government imposed austerity measures but also instituted market reforms and opened the economy to foreign investment.
Castro said the anti-corruption campaign would target some symbols of the economic opening, such as mini-restaurants in private homes known as "paladares." "It's possible not one 'paladar' will remain, because none of us has become neo-liberal," Castro said, using the Latin American term to describe market-oriented, laissez-faire economic policies.
"We are going to put an end to many sources of money-making of the nouveau riche," Castro said in his November speech. EFE
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