/ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT/BOOKS-CUBA: Writers Take Place on World Stage

By Patricia Grogg Reprint | | Print |

Patricia Grogg

HAVANA, Mar 27 2001 (IPS) - Cuban literature is reaching new heights on the world stage fed by a growing interest in the complexity of life on the Caribbean island and the fact that its writers, anxious to get published, have looked outside the country for publishers.

The quest for international publishers began in the 1990s. Cuban literature was dedicated in those years to proving its potential in the global arena, says Antón Arrufat, a poet, novelist and playwright who won Cuba’s National Prize for Literature last year.

There is a great diversity of themes and styles among authors in Cuba, according to literary experts, but they share a rejection of the epic and reiterative literature that reigned here in the 1970s.

But until the early 1990s, there were few authors who had any real chance of publishing outside the island.

The Cuban publishing authorities at the time showed little interest in placing books by national authors on the world market. They scarcely invested efforts in “exporting” the island’s authors, save for some notables who were already well known, such as Alejo Carpentier (1904-1980).

Officials also considered it inappropriate for the authors themselves to seek access to foreign publishing houses.

Arrufat recalled that in the 1970s one could only publish a work abroad by going through the National Union of Writers and Artists of Cuba, and then it was nearly always in socialist countries. But now authors can publish in other countries “with great freedom and without negative consequences” back home.

According to novelist and essayist Leonardo Padura, in the past, “Cuban literature had operated self-sufficiently and gave the impression that this was enough, because its principal readers were in Cuba”.

The decade-long economic recession, which began with the disappearance of the European socialist bloc and its market, brought with it shortages for the island’s publishing industry, depriving well-established and new writers alike from seeing their works in print – even within Cuba.

As a result, editions of 20,000 to 30,000 copies per title 10 years ago plummeted to the current output of 2,500 to 3,000, while the total titles published dropped from 2,000 in 1992 to 700 in 1997. Prices, meanwhile, saw a five-fold increase by the mid-1990s from the average of one peso in 1989.

Due to the economic crisis, many artists – including painters, writers, musicians and actors – opted to test their mettle in other countries, where they continued their creative labours, many from a standpoint that was sharply critical of the 40-year-old Cuban revolution.

But others began to test the waters for possibilities of selling or publishing their works outside the country without abandoning it themselves.

As a result of their endeavours, Cuban literature has achieved an important presence in the world literary arena and a long list of authors living on the island can now be found in the portfolios of foreign publishing houses.

In most cases, the public’s interest is piqued by the contradictory and unique situation of the Caribbean island. “The major theme of most writers being published is Cuban reality today, seen from a critical point of view, frank and inquisitive,” explained Padura.

On the list of writers published abroad in the last two years, there is no apparent discrimination as far as age or gender, though there is a marked preference for narrative.

Padura, one of the most-read writers inside Cuba, continues publishing his series of novels in Europe (‘Pasado perfecto’ – Past Perfect, ‘Máscaras’ – Masks, ‘Paisaje de otoño’ – Autumn Landscape, and ‘Vientos de Cuaresma’ – Winds of Lent), in which the protagonist is investigator Mario Conde.

According to the author, the adventures of Conde, an irreverent and non-judgemental police officer, are a “pretext to look at Cuba from an angle that is neither official nor touristy, but real, one in which people live humble lives and the extent of their hopes and despair is evident”.

Pedro Juan Gutiérrez, a proponent of “dirty realism”, has published his ‘Trilogía sucia de La Habana’ (Dirty Trilogy of Havana) in Brazil, Britain, France, Italy, Portugal, Spain and the United States.

The world of Gutiérrez’s novels is the marginal and underground life that occurs on the socialist-governed island, a literary morsel that is especially attractive for the foreign publishing market, commented one book critic.

The Spanish house Grijalbo-Mondadori published Arrufat’s ‘Antología personal’ (Personal Anthology), and will also be entrusted with his ‘La noche del Aguafiestas’ (The Night of the Spoilsport). Another of Arrufat’s works, ‘La caja está cerrada’ (The Cashier is Closed), written in the early 1980s, will soon be on sale in bookshops in Spain and Argentina.

Reynaldo González, an essayist, novelist and poet will see his novel ‘Al cielo sometidos’ published in Italy, while Julio Travieso is known in Spain, Mexico and Italy for ‘El polvo y el oro’.

Writers Miguel Mejides and Abel Prieto (Cuba’s current minister of Culture), both of the generation born around 1950, have had their works published in Europe. Meanwhile, works by Marilyn Bobes, a winner of the prestigious Casa de las Americas prize, can be found on bookstore shelves in Colombia.