A City Writes Back: Printers Row Lit Fest Marks 40 Years

The streets of Chicago turned into a living bookshelf Sept. 6 and 7 as the Printers Row Lit Fest marked its 40th anniversary. Polk and Ida B.Wells Streets became an open-air library, lined with stalls from independent booksellers, buzzing with panels and alive with the hum of turning pages. 

The festival ran from 10 a.m to 6 p.m both days and featured more than 250 authors, alongside children’s programming and story time, food and sports panels and a wide range of readings and discussions alongside vendors from authors to independently owned bookstores. Over 100 booksellers filled the blocks with everything from new releases to rare editions.  

Headlining Saturday was Sandra Cisneros, a Loyola alum and author of “The House on Mango Street.” The PEN Literary Award novel, recently adapted into an opera, has over six million copies sold. Cisneros said she’s now working on a new novel and described her need to tell a story in a pain-stricken world. 

“I have one more house left in me,” Cisneros said. 

During the event, the 70-year-old author recalled the loss of her mother and the grief brought with it. She said this grief became a catalyst that deepened her love for the arts and strengthened her belief in passing that love along.

“It’s your graduation into humanity when you lose someone you love,” Cisneros said.  

For the Mexican American novelist, books were not only companions and something to love, but rather a medicine to heal and transform. Reflecting on how literature helped her through depression, Cisneros said it’s important to turn to the arts for guidance — a way of looking into the soul and finding home.

“Any time you find a book you can’t put down, that’s your prescription,” Cisneros said. 

Her keynote shifted often between personal and political, tying stories of loss to the “turmoil” Chicago’s facing. She pointed to fear of the National Guard taking over her beloved city, the threat of ICE displacing fellow Mexican individuals and the residue of the pandemic as wounds demanding care. 

As a Mexican-American novelist, Cisneros presents her culture through work to immortalize and commemorate the culture that came before her. She said rampant fear shouldn’t stop people from doing what they love. 

“We’re being fed fear, so we don’t react,” Cisneros said. “We need intensive care for our soul — for our hearts. If you don’t transform your demons they will transform you.”

The group said bans rarely target books of comfort, including many of the classic novels students in high-school and beyond are required to read, but instead those that provide mirrors for young readers. Culturally diverse novels, meaning those that feature characters of marginalized groups, often provide a sense of value to the lives of young people who identify as individuals within such groups. 

Still, titles centering characters of color, queer identities or modest explorations of sexuality are most often challenged, according to PEN America. 

Ahmed reminded the audience that even in the “blue states” removals happen quietly. The panel called these “silent book bans,” when books vanish from shelves without public notice. 

Giannoualis said erasing stories erodes the very foundation of civic education. Moore said the concept of book-bannings all tie back to a lack of education leading to submission among the American populous.

The session ended with a call to action from Moore, urging the audience to resist censorship through their own reading choices. He recommended combating the book-banning epidemic by reading more banned books. 

Ahmed stressed the fight against censorship isn’t confined to lawmakers, authors or educators alone. The panelist said young readers need access to literature that reflects their realities. 

As Printers Row Lit Fest breathed life into books, it also reminded readers what’s inside those scripts carries stakes far beyond the page. 

Cisnero’s speech intertwined with the fight against censorship.

She said “The House on Mango Street” is banned in schools in Miami and Texas. She said she’d like to ask lawmakers directly why they banned it. 

“People are scared to think,” Cisneros said. “People are still afraid of COVID. People are still mourning their family, their death, their loss. They don’t want to think before they heal. How do we heal when our hearts have been broken?”

Cisneros pointed to literature as the beginning of an answer, reminding audiences a book can be more than a story — it can be a tool for survival, a prescription for fear and a map back to a place called hope.

“How do we transform our anger before our anger transforms us?” Cisneros said. “It’s simple to me. We read.”