Cuba - Lonely Planet [34]
Several governmental organizations countrywide oversee the work of writers and artists, including the revered Casa de las Américas, the Unión de Escritores y Artistas de Cuba (Uneac; Union of Cuban Writers and Artists; see boxed text,) and its junior counterpart, Asociación Hermanos Saíz.
Although art and culture are actively encouraged in Cuban society, writers of all genres are set strict limits. Conformists (national poet Nicolás Guillén was the best example) enjoy prestige, patronage and a certain amount of artistic freedom, while dissidents (Guillermo Cabrera Infante and Herberto Padilla were two notable historical examples) face oppression, incarceration and the knowledge that their hard-won literary reputation will be quickly airbrushed out of Cuban history.
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In June 2008 the EU finally lifted a set of sanctions against Cuba relating to governmental and diplomatic visits. The sanctions had first been imposed in 2003 following Cuba’s jailing of more than 100 political dissidents.
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For information on Cuban music styles, check out the dedicated Music chapter Click here.
Literature
In a country strewn with icons like rice at a wedding, José Martí (1853–95) is the master. Visionary, patriot and rebel, he was also a literary giant whose collected plays, essays and poetry fill 30 volumes. Exiled for his writings before he was 20, Martí lived most of his life outside Cuba, primarily in the US. His last book of poetry, Versos Sencillos (Simple Verses), is, as the title proclaims, full of simple verses and is arguably one of his best. Though written more than a century ago, the essays collected in Nuestra América (Our America) and Los Estados Unidos (The United States) are remarkably forward-thinking, providing a basis for Latin American self-determination in the face of US hegemony. For more on Martí’s role as Cuban independence leader, see the History chapter Click here.
Like Martí, mulato Nicolás Guillén (1902–89) is considered one of Cuba’s world-class poets. Ahead of his time, he was one of the first mainstream champions of Afro-Cuban culture, writing rhythmic poems such as Sóngoro Cosongo (1931). A communist who believed in social and racial equality, Guillén lived in exile during Batista’s regime, writing Elegía a Jesús Menéndez (1951) and La Paloma de Vuelo Popular: Elegías (1958). Some of his most famous poems are available in the English collection entitled New Love Poetry: Elegy. He returned after the Revolution and cofounded Uneac (see boxed text, above). Guillén was Cuba’s national poet until his death.
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UNEAC
To be a writer in Cuba is to walk a fine line. On the one hand, the arts on this colorful and highly literate island are actively encouraged; on the other, many liberal free-thinkers have, over time, been repeatedly suppressed.
Founded in 1961 by national poet Nicolás Guillén, the Unión de Escritores y Artistas de Cuba (Uneac; Union of Cuban Writers and Artists) has long acted as the island’s official literary mouthpiece. Delegated with the task of redefining Cuban intellectualism within a new postrevolutionary paradigm, Uneac laid out its ambitious agenda in the early 1960s by initiating a series of heated debates about the future of art and social expression within a brave new society.
For a brief period the experimentation appeared to work. Far from being ostracized by Western intellectuals, Castro and his poetry-scribbling cohort Che Guevara came to be viewed as romantic and bohemian figures in Europe and America, and few left-leaning writers or artists remained impervious to their mystique and charm. Eschewing his less flamboyant Kremlin comrades, Fidel happily went his own way in the cultural sphere, hobnobbing with literary luminaries