Naugatuck Valley Community College President Daisy Cocco De Filippis, Ph.D. was honored at the ninth annual Dominican Book Fair on September 25-27 in New York City. The fair, organized by the Ministry of Culture of the Dominican Republic, also honored Marianela Medrano, Ph.D., the longtime organizer and moderator of NVCC’s Confluencia poetry series. President De Filippis and Dr. Medrano are prolific writers who have made “valuable contributions to the Dominican letters,” according to the Ministry of Culture.

The fair was attended by the Minister of Culture of the Dominican Republic, Jose Antonio Rodriguez, and was dedicated this year to the poet, essayist, writer, cultural journalist and university professor Eugenio García Cuevas, who lives in Puerto Rico, for his outstanding career as a writer and cultural journalist, and for his extraordinary contributions to Dominican literature through his literary work.

The event, considered the most significant contribution made by the Ministry of Culture of the Dominican Republic abroad through the office of the Dominican Cultural Commission in the United States, began on September 25, at the United Palace Theatre in Manhattan with a tribute to the Dominican folklore and popular music. The fair continued the following Saturday and Sunday at the Gregorio Luperon High School for Science and Mathematics, where there were exhibits, artistic and cultural activities and a book sale.  The event concluded with closing ceremonies in the auditorium of the Dominican Cultural Commission in Manhattan.

With the motto: "The book is a treasure," the fair, visited each year by thousands of people, offers US Spanish-speaking communities the opportunity to come into contact with the voluminous, varied and rich Dominican literature.