The Literary City of Havana and the Restoration of Culture in the Writing of Abilio Estévez

Krol, Natalie

doi:https://doi.org/10.3828/bhs.2013.51

Krol, Natalie

Bulletin of Hispanic Studies (2013), 90, (7), 835–852.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.3828/bhs.2013.51
Language: English
Pages: 18

Abstract

This article redresses the lack of critical attention to contemporary Cuban narratives that strive to reconcile an inherited cultural symbology with the perceived deficiencies of the present. While dollar fiction, dirty realism and the new detective novel expose some of the paradoxes of Cuba's Special Period, other texts seek to recover a more inclusive literary heterotopia from the site of a crumbling socialist utopia. These refracted cultural responses enter into dialogue with the poets who collaborated in the production of the literary magazine Orígenes (1944-1956). A key exponent of this trend is Abilio Estévez (b. 1954, in exile in Spain since 2002). The narrator of Los palacios distantes (2002) mourns the inconsistencies between the everyday city of Havana and the literary cities desired by the characters. Yet by negotiating Havana's ruins, the foundations of the urban palimpsest can be converted into a new representational space.

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