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3.0 out of 5 stars
One of the More Comprehensive Anthologies of Cuban Writing, January 30, 2010
This review is from: The Voice of the Turtle: An Anthology of Cuban Literature (Paperback)
This book was published in 1997 and contained 31 works by as many Cuban authors. There were 29 short stories, book-ended by 2 essays.
The pieces were published originally between the mid-1920s and mid-1990s. One-third of the works were from the 1990s, and the rest represented each decade back to the 1920s, except for the 1940s, for which nothing was included. According to the editor, the 1920s were the decade in which the short story in Cuba truly began. Of all the writers in the collection, six were women.
For writing published between the 1920s and the 1959 revolution, there were pieces by Alfonso Hernández Catá, Luis Felipe Rodríquez and Lydia Cabrera -- the book's three oldest writers -- as well as Carlos Montenegro, Lino Novás-Calvo, Felix Pita Rodríguez, Virgilio Piñera and José Lezama Lima. Lezama was represented by a very early work, "Truants" (1936), which contained beautiful imagery about a boy and the sea.
For writing published after emigration from Cuba, there were pieces between the 1960s and 90s by Guillermo Cabrera Infante, Calvert Casey, Antonio Benítez Rojo, Severo Sarduy, Fernando Villaverde, Lourdes Casal, Uva de Aragón, Octavio Armand and Carlos Victoria. Sarduy was represented by what the editor said was his last text, a meditation on approaching death from AIDS.
For work published between the 1960s and the 90s by writers who've remained in Cuba -- so far as I could determine -- there were pieces by Onelio Jorge Cardoso, Mirta Yañez, Senel Paz, Marilyn Bobes, Jorge Luis Arzola, Angel Santiesteban Prats and Ricardo Arrieta. Other work either written or published during this period by writers who emigrated subsequently was by Edmundo Desnoes, Reinaldo Arenas, Pedro Sarduy Pérez, Jesús Vega, Rolando Sánchez Mejías, Zoé Valdés and Roberto Uría.
For the period before 1959, the editor included many types of writing: an oral tale (Cabrera), psychological realism (Hernández Catá, Montenegro) magical realism with and without allegorical dimensions (Novás-Calvo, Lezama) and the absurd (Piñera). Subjects included families and individuals at odds over the war for Cuban independence, hardships and magic in the cane-fields, a noble Indian, a slave rebellion, and the passing into another world. Examples of most of these styles could be found after 1959 as well, though more or less straightforward realism was predominant.
For writing in Cuba after 1959, a story by Desnoes from 1967 showed a narrator bused out to the countryside to work in the cane-fields -- with the toil described using stream of consciousness -- before returning to Havana with a vow to roll with the punches and push the revolution forward; ironically, within a few decades this author emigrated to the north. Most enjoyed from this period were a story from the 1990s by Bobes about a woman who'd married a European and moved abroad but wrote back home complaining about foreign conditions -- cold weather in summer, small food portions, casual racism, no decent beaches, plus people who couldn't speak directly or dance and preferred saving to spending. Other stories from the 1990s followed men through a drunken party or at a bar looking for support from foreign tourists. A story by Santiesteban Prats concerned Cuban soldiers fighting in Angola in the 1970s. A tale written by Arenas in the same decade envisioned the end of the socialist experiment and involved a conformist who moved ahead with the regime before suffering a reversal.
Among the writing published by authors after their emigration, a piece by Cabrera Infante contributed something memorable that gave the collection its title, though the story's point eluded me. A tale by Casey showed its narrator's psychological transformation. A piece by Victoria quietly recalled beaches in Cuba and in exile at various stages of the writer's life, peopled by those who were important to him. A certain number of other pieces here and there in the anthology -- the first essay, for example -- seemed unfocused and/or slight and were for me unreadable.
For the period covered by the anthology, the major writer omitted was Alejo Carpentier (1904-80); the editor wrote that permission to include something of his wasn't granted. Other omissions were Norberto Fuentes (1943-), who remained in Cuba until the mid-1990s, as well as writers like Achy Obejas (1956-) and Cristina Garcia (1958-), who grew up and launched their careers abroad and write in English.
Some excerpts from the collection:
"Ten years of dead slaves. We the living felt them die: the living dead. Then we saw them rise. We didn't hear the explosion itself. Our eyes had melted into our ears and all our senses awaited the night of those dead ten years. Nobody knew anything; they felt it. And they were filled with awe."
"As the seaweed washed for the last time against the crumbling stone, [he] descended into sleep. A light sleep, surrounded by seaweed, cottonwool, by hands lightly touching a bag of sand and lace. Letters from Persia, quails of domestic service, goldfish bowls overturned after the crime. In its desire to find the last word and the level of the dream, the quail tugged desperately at his lips . . . . One of his eyes, transfixing the porcelain globe, now brought together with the drill for the garnet stones, focused on the fingertip of the nimblest of bandits. . . . Afterwards the other eye stared at the decorations left by the carapace of boiling waters, of lavas and stings. Now he stood up, the seaweed departed and boundary of the breakwaters erased, and the night soaked his entrails, grew like a tree shaking the ink from its branches."
"When people yell that way -- Free-dom! -- usually what they want is just the opposite. I know. I saw it."
Other collections include Writers in the New Cuba: An Anthology (1967), Dream with No Name: Contemporary Fiction from Cuba (1999), Cuba: A Traveler's Literary Companion (2002) -- a shorter introduction -- and Cubanísimo! The Vintage Book of Contemporary Cuban Literature (2002) -- also worthwhile and going back to the late 19th century. Another work, the Borzoi Anthology of Latin American Literature, Vol. 2 (1977), contains nine Cuban writers, including Carpentier, Cabrera Infante, Sarduy and Arenas as well as Lezama Lima and other poets.
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