While the rest of the country celebrates Dia de la Raza (Columbus Day) on Wednesday, October 12, in Guadalajara the Italian sailor who stumbled across a continent and its people 519 years ago gets trumped by a diminutive miracle worker.

Heavyweight authors and the most promising literary talents from all over Latin America will appear before 600,000 reading enthusiasts at Guadalajara’s 25th International Book Fair (FIL) in late November.

The rose sculpture representing Mexico in Rosefest Guadalajara 2011 – beautifully decorated by 12 Huichol artisans from Zitacua, Nayarit – has been installed at the junction between Hidalgo and Chapultepec ahead of the Pan American Games.

Of all the eyebrow-raising niches an artist can carve out for themselves, Guadalajara native Martha Pacheco, without touching on sex or religion, has chosen one of the most unusual and taboo.

The Western Mexican Museum of Archaeology opened this week in a downtown edifice that once housed revolutionary troops.

The Jalisco Culture Secretariat will pay tribute to a late Lakeside musical giant in a unique concert at the Teatro Degollado on October 7.