Cuban president commemorates the founding of the National Printing House

 HAVANA, Cuba, Mar 31 (ACN) Miguel Diaz-Canel, first secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba and president of the country, evoked today the founding of the National Printing House of Cuba, in 1959.

"Fidel, Carpentier, the National Printing House, Cuban Culture, names and works to honor, to nourish the spirit, to grow and to love and defend the Revolution until the last breath," said the President on X on the occasion of the 66th anniversary of this event.

With his words, the President shared the message of writer Abel Prieto, president of Casa de las Americas, recalling the event.

"On March 31, 1959, the National Printing House of Cuba was founded. It is the Day of the Cuban Book. In 1961, Fidel would affirm: "We don't tell the people 'believe'; we tell them 'read'," Prieto wrote on the same social network.

With novelist and essayist Alejo Carpentier at the helm, the institution came to carry out systematic and massive publications of books, magazines and pamphlets, as well as other printed formats demanded by the Cuban population.

The first printed book was El ingenioso hidalgo Don Quijote de la Mancha ("The Ingenious Hidalgo Don Quixote"), by Miguel de Cervantes, divided into four volumes and illustrated by Gustavo Dore and Pablo Picasso, opening with this work the Biblioteca del Pueblo collection, devoted to the classics of universal literature.

The work of the National Printing House, which became the National Publishing House in 1962, was decisive in the preparation and publication of the entire study base, such as the primers and manuals used in the National Literacy Campaign.