Remarkable Cuban intellectual of universal culture, luminary figure of the Cuban novel and one of the most relevant last-century Spanish-speaking writers.

His preference and knowledge of music came from his mother as a heritage, which he diversified and tinged with an ample formation in Cuba and France. Although he started Architecture at Habana University, quickly abandoned it to practice cultural journalism.

His handwriting is printed on every important publication of the epoch. He took part of the famous Protesta de los Trece (1923), headed by Rubén Martínez Villena and entered Grupo Minorista. At the end of 20s, he travelled to Mexico for a writer congress, there he met painter Diego Rivera and a close friendship started. He is among Avance Magazine founders, publishing his poem Liturgia. Around that epoch, he suffered from prison, being accused of comunist and wrote in jail the first version of his novel ¡Ecue-Yamba-O! .

After his liberation, he organized together with Amadeo Roldán, concerts of music, featuring in Cuba, Stravinsky, Poulenc, Eric Satie, Malipiero`s works while collaborating with different cultural magazines. He travelled little after to France and actively got involved in the cultural and intellectual environment of the epoch, getting in touch with such luminaries as André Breton, Louis Aragon, Tristan Tzara, Paul Eluard, George Sadoul, Benjamín Peret, Chirico, Ives Tangui, Raymond Quenau, Edgar Varesse, Arthur Honegger, Pablo Picasso, among others.

He was in charge of Fonoric Studios in Paris which undertook musical recordings and radio programs (1933-1939), stablishing also a close friendship with Federico García Lorca, Rafael Alberti, José Bergamín and Pedro Salinas. He attended, as Cuban representer, the II Congress in Defense of Culture, celebrated in Madrid and Valencia on 1937 together with Nicolás Guillén, Juan Marinello and Félix Pita Rodríguez.

He started musiological researches in Cuba, especially in Santiago de Cuba, as a request of Fondo de Cultura Económica of Mexico allowing revaluation of relevant figures of Cuban music such as Esteban Salas and Manuel Saumell. In Venezuela, he made works related to advertisement and radio. At the triumph of the Cuban revolution, he returned to his country to soon became Vice-President of National Council of Culture. He teached classes of History at Habana University and when National Union of Writers and Artists were created, he was one of its Vice-President, being in addition, one of the responsibles of Union Magazine, together with Nicolás Guillén and Roberto Fernández Retamar. He was also in charge of the Editora Nacional de Cuba direction in 1963, keeping this responsability until 1968, year in which he was designed Consultant Minister for Cultural Themes at Cuban Embassy in Paris.

His narrative work: ¡Ecué-Yamba-O! , Viaje a la semilla (Journey to Seeds), El reino de este mundo (Kingdom of this World), Los pasos perdidos (The Lost Steps), El acoso (Harrasment), Guerra del tiempo (War of Time), El siglo de las luces (Century of Lights), El derecho de asilo (Right to Asylum), El recurso del método (Resource of Method), La consagración de la primavera (Spring Consecration) and El arpa y la sombra (Harp and Shadow), have been translated to all modern languages receiving international recognition.

Among the most remarkable Prizes of his outstanding cultural life, we can highlight International Prizes ''Cino del Duca'' and ''Alfonso Reyes 1975'' and Cervantes Prize of Literature in 1978. He was also granted with Doctor Honoris Cause Title in Hispanic Language and Literature at Habana University.

More information on Cubaliteraria

See works from this artist on our Cuban Books Shop