Goodbye to two Cuban intellectuals: Nuria Nuiry and Elsa Claro

July 24, 2021

The week that is ending has been a sorrowful one for Cuban intellectual women due to the deaths of two notable figures: Nuria Nuiry and Elsa Claro.

Nuiry, at 87 years old, passed away last Wednesday, July 21st in Havana. Dr. Nuria Nuiry Sánchez dedicated her life to the study of José Martí's work and to the training of generations of Cuban journalists. A native of Santiago de Cuba from a deeply Martían family, together with her brother Juan Nuiry, she joined the clandestine struggle against Fulgencio Batista's dictatorship at a very young age. After the triumph, she devoted her talent and vocation to teaching, becoming a recognized pedagogue at the University of Havana, where she came to direct the School of Journalism.

One of her students, the distinguished press professional and National Prize winner José Martí, José Alejandro Rodríguez, on the occasion of Nuria's 80th birthday, wrote in Juventud Rebelde: "Much more than Doctor, professor and university lecturer, wise and cultured woman—which she has also been abundantly—I feel Nuria as my teacher (…) the woman who illuminated with Martían light the often convoluted labyrinths of an entire generation of journalism apprentices, in times of tender harshness". She developed in parallel, as a faithful disciple of Martí, her pedagogical vocation with the leadership of cultural institutions. Hence her outstanding work as a professor of Spanish American Literature or lecturer at the José Martí International Institute of Journalism, as well as rector of the Higher Institute of Art, or director of Artistic Education at the Ministry of Culture.

In an interview granted in 2008 to journalism student Lourdes María Benítez Cereijo at that time, and in response to a question about her opinion on so many recognitions of her work, including the Order for National Culture conferred four years earlier, Nuria replied: "My greatest decoration is when a student shows me a token of gratitude. Medals are flattering, but seeing the results of a human being satisfies me much more, and since I cannot hang that medal on my chest, I carry it in my heart. What matters is knowing that the idea I have sown bears good fruit".

And those fruits today sorrowfully say goodbye to the teacher, among them the prestigious journalist Alina Perera Robbio, another of her students, who upon learning the news wrote early this morning an immense truth that honors the life of a TEACHER: "A great human being has died".

For her part, the distinguished Cuban journalist Elsa Claro, a prestigious professional who worked in the country's main press media such as Granma Internacional, Juventud Rebelde and Bohemia, passed away this Friday, July 23rd.

Elsa was born in Havana in the year 1943. She was a member of the Union of Writers and Artists of Cuba (UNEAC) and the Union of Journalists of Cuba (UPEC).

A frequent panelist on Mesa Redonda and a tireless contributor to both Cubadebate and the Cubaperiodistas website, she distinguished herself by her profound and serious approach to international topics and became a reference point for addressing contemporary world issues.

Her imprint is recorded in the hundreds of articles, commentaries, and interviews that she likewise contributed to radio programs, fundamentally on Radio Progreso, where her voice distinguished the dawn on the program A Primera Hora.

Additionally, Elsa published several volumes of poetry, such as Para crecer y darme cuenta; Agua y fuego (1981), with a bilingual edition in former Czechoslovakia; Los caminos y el silencio (1990) and Semillas del Atardecer (2007).

As a result of her work in the journalistic field are the titles: Mini Siquis, with three editions by Orbe and Ciencia y Técnica publishers in 1980, 1983 and 1989, and Ocaso del mito (1989).