Every year, Miami Book Fair International generates high expectations among Spanish-language readers who enthusiastically greet authors from throughout the Hispanic world. But the fair also gives writers from the United States, Canada and Miami the opportunity to present their books in Spanish and to mingle with their English-language colleagues.

Arriving just in time for this year's fair is the season's most anticipated book, Fidel y Raul: Mis hermanos (Aguilar/Santillana), Juanita Castro's memoirs as told to Maria Antonieta Collins, already in its second printing after only a two-week run.

``It's the most well-sold book in all of my life,'' says Juan Manuel Salvat, director of Miami's Libreria y Ediciones Universal, which sold 700 copies in one weekend. ``They were ingenious with the promotion, because the secret is not a secret: I knew that she had collaborated with the CIA. But among Cubans there were few real CIA agents. . . . The book has a lot of information about the youth of the Castro brothers and very personal things that are new.''

Castro's appearance closes the Spanish-language program on Sunday.

Ediciones Universal, one of the oldest Cuban-exile publishers, brings to the fair authors Tomás Fernández Travieso with El silencio del ayer (The Silence of Yesterday); Raul Chao with Babaragui and Matias Montes Huidobro with Cuba detras del telon, tomo III (Cuba Behind the Curtain, Volume III).

This year more than 100 Ibero-American writers representing 25 publishing houses appear, among them author and South Florida TV talk-show host Jaime Bayly, author of El cojo y el loco (The Lame Man and the Crazy Man), who will close the fair's Saturday sessions.

``Those who enjoy writers as performers can't miss Boris Izaguirre, who anchored the show Cronicas Marcianas (Martian Chronicles) on Spanish television and brings a novel about Cuba, Y de repente fue ayer (And Suddenly it was Yesterday, Planeta),'' says Alejandro Ríos, a spokesman for the Spanish-language program.

Other confirmed writers include Cristina Rivera Garza, with La frontera mas distante (The Most Distant Border), Angela Becerra with Ella, que todo lo tuvo (She, Who Had Everything) and Lissette Bustamente, with another version of the Cuban drama with her portrait of Raúl Castro.

The Spanish-language schedule kicks off at 4 p.m. Sunday with a program based on La ciudad de la unidad posible (The City of Possible Unity), an anthology published by the Miami-based Ultramar and featuring the work of more than 30 Miami poets. Participating will be the Spanish novelist Carlos Rojas, who will also later discuss his book Retratos antifranquistas (Anti- Franco Portraits). The poets will be followed by Carmen Posadas, with La cinta roja (The Red Ribbon), and the theater group Prometeo, which will perform Chejov vs. Chejov.

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