# Evelio Antonio Traba Fonseca

**Categories:** literature, narrator, poet

Outstanding Cuban writer from Bayamo, Granma, who from an early age showed special interest in literature by participating in various humanities competitions. He is a narrator and poet. He is a regular contributor to the Cultural Journal Ventana Sur. Master's degree in linguistics.

Evelio has been the recipient of numerous international literary awards in Cuba and Spain, from the Latin American Alba Narrativa 2012 to the Iberoamerican Verbum 2016 novel award. Critics recognize him as an authentic contemporary voice of historical narrative in particular and Cuban narrative in general, especially for his careful style with historical facts and characters, which he approaches through the cracks that historiography permits, presenting us with a much more human and credible panorama, bringing us closer to the heroes and humanizing them.

The sixth novel by Evelio Antonio Traba Fonseca will soon be in the hands of readers around the world in print and digital format. The author of La Concordia (Arte y literatura 2012), El camino de la desobediencia (Verbum 2016, Ediciones Boloña 2017), El ritual de las cabezas perpetuas (Verbum 2016, La Luz 2018), and Dos versiones de Fray Bernardino (Verbum 2019), Súbditos de Lisboa and Magdalena (still unpublished) presents us with a work on a current topic that will captivate readers of various generations both for its argument and for the impressive cinematic way of storytelling with which the still young narrator goes discovering places and circumstances.

Completed in Cuba in 2020, Vendrás conmigo narrates the journey of a young woman and her circumstantial adventure companions, who travel from Cuba via Ecuador and the Central American route in pursuit of the American dream. Accessible language, sometimes crude, with a realism that can be startling without falling into pure fiction, where the humor that the author brings to situations and characters persists, even in the midst of biting, terrible passages where the worst human anti-values emerge, while still capturing the profound sensitivity in the psychosocial portrayal of characters that in this work range from children to elderly adults, passing through young people searching for their identity.

Only three novels have been published in Cuba; the author hopes that the four remaining works can see the light of publication, three of them written in part or laid out in his native Bayamo. Of these: Dos versiones de Fray Bernardino (the shortest with barely 60 pages) is in the hands of Cuban publishers and two others mentioned are still read only by a narrow circle of friends and collaborators.

A graduate in Psychology from the University of Granma, Evelio Traba stands out as a recognized contemporary Cuban novelist, whom scholars of Cuban, Caribbean, and Latin American literature have expressed admiration and recognition for, especially for the historical themes addressed in his first works where the figure of the Father of the Nation, Carlos Manuel de Céspedes, stands out.

From an early age he showed special interest in literature, participating in various humanities competitions called by the different educational levels he attended: primary education, secondary education, and finally pre-university education, where he managed to organically develop his artistic-literary training.

The novel El camino de la desobediencia, whose protagonist is Cuba's Padrazo, has been recognized by Doctor of Sciences Eusebio Leal Spengler as an unparalleled work for Cuban literature for its approach to the Man of Marble from his human perspective. In it, as in the rest of his works, an excellent mastery stands out for weaving secondary conflicts that contribute to the main one, as well as linking characters, describing scenes and periods that are the product of the author's rich imagination and undoubtedly his command of language and its riches.

The prolific writer born in Bayamo in 1985 also has the Accésit of the Latin American and Caribbean Alba Narrativa 2012 Award for his first novel La concordia, and as a poet he won the National Poetry Award Fidelia 2007 awarded by the Union of Writers and Artists of Cuba in Granma with the collection Las puertas cambian de sitio (Ediciones Bayamo 2008).

Traba Fonseca's fourth known novel is a short work, barely 60 pages, which he finished writing in 2017. Dos versiones de Fray Bernardino, according to its author, addresses the field of writing and its miseries as a controversial area of significance for the writer. Álvaro Morantes is a writer in the twilight hours, both in terms of his own creation and in his intimate relationships. In his attempt to rescue the fire of lost inspiration, he tries to find the keys to his present in old drawers of manuscripts that once gave him fame.

Work History
    Teaching Assistant in Spanish–Literature and History of America, course 2001-2002.
    Member of the Eliseo Diego Literary Workshop at the IPUEC ''Perucho Figueredo''.
    Member of the José Martí Literary Workshop of the Cultural Center ''20 de Octubre'' in Bayamo.
    Active member of the city's Literary Workshop José Soler Puig, 2003.
    Member of the Asociación Hermanos Saíz (2009).
    Collaborated with the magazine Auriga of the AHS.
    Regular contributor to the Cultural Journal ''Ventana Sur''.
    Selected Head of the Literature Section in the Asociación Hermanos Saíz, Granma branch (2011).
    Has been selected to be part of various anthologies of young creators in the country.
    Works at the House of Cuban Nationality.

Awards Received
    First Prize in National Literature Competition, course 2001-2002.
    First Prize in Amateur Artists Festival, course 2001-2002.
    Second Prize in Juegos Florales of Santiago de Cuba.
    National Poetry Award Fidelia (2007), organized by UNEAC in Granma, with the collection Las puertas cambian de sitio, Ediciones Bayamo, 2009.
    Finalist of the Spring Poetry Prize, 2009.
    Guest at the Festival del Libro en la Montaña, Horneros 2009.
    Guest at the event Al Sur está la poesía, Pilón, 2010.
    Finalist of the International Alba Narrativa Novel Prize (2011), with the work Desolación de La Concordia, first narrative project set in the second half of the nineteenth and first of the twentieth century in the City of Bayamo.
    Winner of the Accésit of the international Alba Narrativa NOVEL Prize (2012), with the novel La Concordia.
    Miguel de Cervantes Exemplary Novels Award granted by the University of Castilla La Mancha, Ciudad Real, Spain with the novel Dos versiones de Fray Bernardino.

Participation as Juror
He has participated as a juror in numerous events, including the Batalla de Guisa prize and the Literary Workshop Meeting.

Published Books:

Dos versiones de Fray Bernardino. (novel) Editorial Verbum, Madrid, 1st edition, 2019.

El camino de la desobediencia (novel)
1st edition, Editorial Verbum, Madrid, 2016.
2nd edition, Ediciones Boloña, 573 pages. Office of the Historian of Havana, 2017, Revised and expanded text.

El ritual de las cabezas perpetuas (novel)
Editorial Verbum, Madrid, 2016, 170 pages.
2nd edition, Ediciones La Luz, Cuba, 2018, 165 pages.

Everyone I Know, Poetic Anthology by Fernando Pessoa
Editorial Verbum, (Selection and Foreword) Madrid, 184 pages

La Concordia (novel) Editorial Arte y Literatura, Havana, 2013, 446 pages.

Las puertas cambian de sitio (poetry) Ediciones Bayamo, Cuba, 2009