Bringing Books to Cuba
GREEN, ASHBEL
A DELEGATE'S ACCOUNT Bringing Books tO Cuba BY ASHBEL GREEN the 1950s that Cuban and U.S. literary representatives had held a series of meetings. They were at once revealing, contentious,...
...however, was not a member of the American delegation...
...Cubans spoke of Washington's hostile policies, pointing out that in last year's 101-2 UN vote condemning the embargo, Israel alone voted with the United States, and Israel trades with Cuba...
...There are a few small press publishers who manage to acquire paper for limited runs of relatively unknown writers...
...financially backed by a Cuban pop singer, promotes national literature, especially the works of black writers...
...Although Cuban officials told U.S...
...publishers to bring any books they desired, two were rather quickly removed "WE ARE THIRSTY for books" declared Armando Hart, Cuba's Minister of Culture, at the conclusion of an extraordinary five-day visit to Havana by a delegation made up of some 60 American writers and book publishing executives...
...director of the 1995 Academy Award nominee Strawberries and Chocolate, who said he has more freedom in Havana to film what he desires than he would enjoy in Hollywood...
...Some, invited by universities to lecture and read from their works, have individually traveled to the United States...
...Joseph Sullivan, the chief U.S...
...While the embargo does not cover books, Cuban writers are unable to collect royalties directly from American publishers...
...Yet the passion for reading among Cubans was plain to see at the display in Havana's old Capitol building: Visitors avidly pored over the shelves...
...Americans raised human rights issues...
...diplomat in Havana, was temporarily barred from the opening ceremonies because his name was not on the guest Ashbel Green, a previous contributor to The New Leader , is a vice President and senior editor at A Ifred A. Knopf...
...They were at once revealing, contentious, thoughtful, and promising for the future...
...Banco de Ideas prints small editions of classic works like Kafka's The Metamorphosis...
...So it was not surprising that American editors held meetings with Havana publishers and took home new works by Cuban writers to consider for translation and publication...
...After writing a letter of protest to the regime in 1991, she was attacked by a government-sponsored mob, forced to eat a pamphlet she had distributed, and imprisoned...
...The panel discussion held at UNEAC...
...Only after the Americans complained that this procedure violated the promise of free access did the crowds start to arrive...
...In addition, only a few hundred books are issued by the state each year...
...It might further have been observed that not until the Nobel laureate (and friend of Castro) Gabriel Garcia Mar-quez intervened last year was the prominent writer Norberto Fuentes allowed to escape police harassment by leaving Cuba...
...This was a far cry from the experience of American publishers in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe during the 1970s and '80s, when substantial numbers of "offensive" works were routinely deleted by the censors from U.S.-sponsored book fairs...
...He claimed that there were no writers in prison, and that no prisoners were being tortured...
...On the other hand, despite considerable publicity in print and on the air, attendance was sparse during the exhibit's initial few days because no Cuban was admitted without a ticket that had to be obtained at a government office or at a school...
...The occasion was the opening last February 28 of a two-week U.S...
...Fundacion Pablo Milanes...
...Of course, there were exhilarating times...
...This was the first time since from the exhibit, one of them a biography of Fidel Castro...
...And documents were confiscated when the baggage of eight departing Americans who were labeled "unconstructive" by the Cuban authorities was searched at the Havana airport...
...Others watched a private showing of impressive Cuban documentary films...
...Nevertheless, among the available volumes were works by such anti-Fidel emigres as Guillermo Cabrera Infante, Reinaldo Arenas and He-berto Padilla...
...they think there may be opportunities for freer expression in the immediate future...
...The Americans were similarly aware of the story of prize-winning poet Maria Elena Cruz Varela, who is now in exile...
...After the showing closed March 15, most of the books were distributed without cost to Cuban libraries and schools...
...A dozen dissident writers invited by some Americans to a panel discussion were disinvited by the Cuban Writers and Artists Union (UNEAC...
...All the political bickering notwithstanding, at the end of the trip the American visitors had a sense that much had been accomplished, that it might be possible through cultural exchanges to create openings between Cuba and the United States at a time when national leaders appear unable to shake off the burdens of past history and present-day rhetoric...
...A highly literate country, Cuba is not simply thirsty, it is starving for books...
...A caller at the offices of the leading publishing house was greeted by rows of abandoned desks...
...The Americans had a number of arresting experiences unrelated to publishing, too...
...Alarcon cited the sentiments of Tomas Gutierrez Alea...
...The novelist-journalist Pablo Armando Fernandez is trying, with the help of Americans, to launch Dialog, an independent bilingual magazine that will deal with Cuban-American issues...
...The aggressively articulate novelist Abel Prieto, president of UNEAC and a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party, defended the Cuban system...
...list...
...ALTERNATIVE literary groups are currently springing up in Cuba, tolerated but not supported by UNEAC or the government...
...which was to concern freedom of expression and the responsibilities of writers under different forms of government, was less a consideration of literature than aseriesof set political statements...
...Some attended a baseball game (admission is free in Castro's Cuba) where the level of play was appreciably superior to what could be witnessed in the replacement spring training camps of Florida and Arizona...
...Several other controversies marked the event as well...
...a healthy, open-minded skepticism was the prevailing order of the week...
...They are not part of Washington's embargo against Fidel Castro, but are hardly a priority for a regime with little hard currency to spend...
...sales executives made modest agreements for the importing of limited numbers of their titles...
...exhibit of 7,000 titles covering a wide variety of subjects, including medicine and fiction, poetry and martial arts, computers and politics...
...Earlier, there had been a lengthy dialogue about cultural freedom with Ricardo Alarcon, president of the National Assembly and a possible successor to Castro...
...We'd like to be rich," one of them said, "but right now publication in English is more important to us...
...For a small country Cuba has produced more than its share of internationally recognized authors, including the novelist Alejo Carpentier, the poet Nicolas Guillen, and Jose Marti, the revolutionary hero whom Cabrera Infante has called "the greatest prose writer in all of the Spanish 19th century...
...Many feel their government is loosening up a bit...
...Readings by such American writers as Carol Brightman, biographer of Mary McCarthy, Bob Shacochis, National Book Award winner in fiction,journalist Peter Eisner, and children's author-singer Sarah Weeks, provoked wonderful responses from the audiences...
...An American speaker noted in response that the writer Rolando Yndamiro Restanto is at present serving a prison term for "rebellion...
...One leading poet sells antiquarian books in a square in Old Havana...
...Pollyanna...
...Still others were present at a transvestites' ball, in a country whose regime has in the past punished sexual deviance...
...But the life of a writer is not easy in economically hard-pressed Cuba...
...Delegation members also talked into the night with Cuban novelists and poets about writing and publishing...
Vol. 78 • March 1995 • No. 3
