Pension older writers – Buenos Aires
In what may be a world first the city of Buenos Aires city parliament has passed a new law granting writers aged 60 and over a government pension worth about A$620 a month.
To qualify under the law of Recognition of Literary Activity, writers must have lived in Buenos Aires for at least 15 years and published at least five books which in total have not enjoyed great commercial success.
The vice-president of the Argentinian Society of Writers, Victor Redondo, said that the quality of the work would not be taken into account but that there would be some restrictions, with vanity publications – often personalized memoirs – not included.
Poet Diana Bellessi said that the law was the first legislation to acknowledge writers as producers.
It enshrined their basic right to a dignified old age and scrapped the notion that writing was work done for free.
Despite being passed by the city parliament, the writer’s pension proposal still has to be passed by the executive government of Buenos Aires, which agrees with the spirit of the law but is faced with pressing social and economic problems in its budget.
