Antón Arrufat Mrad

His demeanor resembles the stereotype of a Catholic seminarian, with that ecstatic bearing of exasperating self-sufficiency. Anyone who does not know him closely runs the risk of accusing him a priori of being vain and stern. But upon enjoying his proximity, Antón Arrufat reveals himself to us as different, amusing, spontaneous and lucid, without the hypocritical affectations of someone who knows he is being observed in his hard-won notoriety.

A man of great perseverance, he confesses that "the bad moments, the anxieties of any kind, the vicissitudes," he has been assimilating thanks to his capacity for resistance.

For more than a decade he lived in anonymity, amid the misunderstanding and equivocation that arose from the publication of a valuable theatrical piece: Los siete contra Tebas, but nothing separated him from his destiny as a writer. "I have always believed that the relations between the State and the writer are not easy… And since I am very sure of that and perhaps there was a misunderstanding with respect to my work and my conduct—which has always been invariable—, I was not worried about what was happening around me. The others do their job, and I do mine; it is what I have to do."

He studied primary education in his native city, at the Colegio de Dolores, of the Company of Jesus. According to his most perceptive friends, he retains gestures of a priest: he speaks with deliberation and is disciplined and frugal.

The paternal family is of Catalan origin, hence the surname. His grandfather's mother, his siblings, abandoned Sitges at the end of the nineteenth century, and she came pregnant with who would be his grandfather, and gave birth in Santiago. Thus, through this line he is Cuban by the third generation.

His second surname, Mrad, is of Lebanese origin. His other grandfather had been born in Syria, from an Arab and Muslim family. This grandfather, who left his Cuban grandmother with four small daughters and disappeared from home never to return, he saw only once, as a child.

He has always been myopic and as a child the family was unaware of it. He could not see clearly the letters on the school blackboard, and they thought him slow, clumsy and moronic. The priest in the classroom discovered the truth: an innate myopia, which lasts to this day. When they put glasses on him, he learned to read and then life was born in duplicate, the one that is lived and the one that is dreamed.

In 1947, when he was eleven years old, the family brought him to live in Havana. That is, they all came. Many years later, about this short provincial existence, such a delicate refuge, he wrote a novel, his first, which is as extensive as those years, La caja está cerrada, published in 1984, which won the Prize of the Critics the following year.

Already in Havana, he entered the Escolapios, where he completed primary education. He completed his secondary education at the Instituto de La Habana, at that of Marianao and at that of Vedado, according to the family's moves from one neighborhood to another. Since childhood he played theater with his sister, they dressed up, hung a white sheet from a wire in the living room of the house, and performed imaginary works.

His father loved zarzuelas, and took him to see "La verbena de la paloma" and "Los gavilanes" on Sunday afternoons, when Spanish companies came to Havana. His father, although Cuban, lived and moved in a circle of Spanish merchants. He was a great drinker and dominoes player. He never made a fortune, although he descended from a wealthy family.

That grandfather who was born upon arriving in Santiago made money selling eggs in a basket through the streets of Santiago. He became the owner of a furrier's shop and a clothing store. The son never equaled him. He always lived on his meager salary as a commerce traveling salesman, a salary that, well managed, served him to educate his children.

His vocation for literature began to manifest itself very early. From childhood, already in Santiago de Cuba, he wrote poems and little theatrical pieces. In a class notebook he drafted a novel, which in one of the family's numerous moves, was lost.

He premiered his first theatrical work in 1957, "El caso se investiga". His father had died in a railroad accident the previous year. His mother three years before. He had been left orphaned, and set himself to write with dedication, until today.

He began publishing in the magazine Ciclón, directed by José Rodríguez Feo, who had been for many years co-director of Orígenes. There he inserted critiques, theatrical pieces, narratives and poems. He lived, after his father's death, in the United States. He visited Canada. He returned to Cuba after the revolutionary triumph, in 1959, where he has remained until today.

He has traveled through Europe, resided in London and Paris. In 1962 his first book appeared, En claro, which collects his adolescent poems.

He worked on the magazine Lunes de Revolución and founded and directed the magazine Casa de las Américas for five years. In the late year of 1979, after long absences, he finished his university studies, graduating from the Faculty of Philology at the University of Havana. He kept the diploma in a drawer and it is still there. But it was a personal victory to complete those studies.

He was a friend and literary executor of Virgilio Piñera. Among his works are, in theater: Los siete contra Tebas (1968) La repetición, El caso se investiga, La tierra permanente (1987); La divina Fanny, Todos los domingos (1965), the collection of pieces Teatro (1963) and in poetry: Repaso final (1963), Escrito en las puertas (1967) and La huella en la arena (1986); in narrative: La caja cerrada (novel, 1984) and ¿Qué harás después de mí? (short stories, 1988).

In 1968, the controversy unleashed around his theatrical piece Los siete contra Tebas with which he won the José Antonio Ramos prize from the Union of Writers and Artists (UNEAC), condemned him to about fourteen years of silence during which the writer could not publish. The work premiered in Cuba in 2007 under the direction of Alberto Sarraín.

His theatrical pieces have been translated into Polish, English and French. They have premiered in the United States, Venezuela, Mexico, Puerto Rico and Warsaw. He has published in the magazine Europe, L'Arc, Les Lettres, Quimera, Siempre, Ever green and in almost all Cuban magazines.

In 1987 he received the Prize of Literary Criticism for La tierra permanente (theater) and in 1995 for the poetry book, Lirios sobre un fondo de espadas.

In 2000 he is distinguished with the National Prize for Literature. In addition, he receives for the novel La noche del aguafiestas the Prize of Literary Criticism. He is also awarded the Medal "Alejo Carpentier" and the Distinction for Cuban Culture.

In 2003 the Editorial Letras Cubanas publishes his theatrical piece Las tres partes del criollo.

In 2005 the Editorial Letras Cubanas publishes his book of essays El hombre discursivo.

Mi antagonista y otras observaciones (short stories). 1963.
La caja está cerrada (novel). Letras Cubanas, Ocuje, 1984/Letras Cubanas, PNL, 2002; 2003.
¿Qué harás después de mí? (short stories). Letras Cubanas, Giraldilla, 1988.
Las pequeñas cosas (prose). 1988.
De las pequeñas cosas (short stories). Pre-Texto, Spain, 1997.
Ejercicios para hacer de la esterilidad virtud (short stories). Ediciones Unión, 1998.
La noche del Aguafiestas (novel). Letras Cubanas, Premio Alejo Carpentier, 2000.
Teatro. Ediciones Unión, 1963.
Todos los domingos. Ediciones R, 1964.
Los siete contra Tebas. Ediciones Unión, 1968.
La tierra permanente. Letras Cubanas, Giraldilla, 1987.
Cámara de amor. Letras Cubanas, Giraldilla, 1994.
La divina Fanny. Ediciones Unión, 1995.
Las tres partes del criollo. Letras Cubanas, 2003.
En claro. Ediciones La Tertulia, 1962.
Repaso final. Ediciones R, 1963.
Escrito en las puertas. Ediciones Unión, 1968.
La huella en la arena. Letras Cubanas, Giraldilla, 1986.
Lirios sobre un fondo de espadas. Letras Cubanas, Edic. Especial, 1995.
El viejo carpintero. Ediciones Unión, 1999.
Essays
Virgilio Piñera: entre él y yo. Ediciones Unión, 1995/Letras Cubanas, Rueda Dentada, 2000.
Anthologies
Antología personal. Mondadori, 2001.
Editions and compilations
Nuevos cuentistas cubanos. Casa de las Américas, 1960.
Guarachas cubanas. Ediciones La Tertulia, 1962.
Teatro de Strindberg. Letras Cubanas, 1964.
Cuentos de Felisberto Hernéndez. Casa de las Américas, 1968.
Espantolino. Gertrudis Gómez de Avellaneda. Letras Cubanas, 1984.
Dos mujeres. Gertrudis Gómez de Avellaneda. Letras Cubanas, 2000.

Passive bibliography
Arreola, Juan José. "Antón Arrufat: El vivo al pollo", in Casa de las Américas. Havana, 2 (9): 157, Nov.-Dec., 1961.
Ávila, Leopoldo. "Antón se va a la guerra", in Verde Olivo. Havana, 9 (47): 16-18, Nov. 24, 1968.
Daltón, Roque. "En claro [de] Antón Arrufat", in Casa de las Américas. Havana, 3 (17-18): 63-64, Mar.-Jun., 1963.
Desnoes, Edmundo. "Para estos libros que esperan", in Unión. Havana, 3 (2): 195-198, Apr.-Jun., 1964.
Díaz Martínez, Manuel. "Repaso final", in Bohemia, Havana, 57 (38): 23, Sep. 17, 1965.
Galich, Manuel. "Arrufat en el Teatro Experimental", in La Gaceta de Cuba, Havana, 2 (29): 15, Nov. 5, 1963.
Leal, Rine. En primera persona. (1954-1966). Havana, Instituto del Libro, 1967, p. 48, 133-134, 177-180 and 340-341.
Llopis, Rogelio. "Antón Arrufat, escritor versátil", in La Gaceta de Cuba. Havana, 3 (35): 20-21, Apr. 20, 1964.
Muguercia, Magaly. "Porque jamás ocurra en días laborables [sobre todo los domingos], in El Caimán Barbudo. Havana, (5): 22, Jul., 1966.
Piñera, Virgilio. "Tres en uno a una", in La Gaceta de Cuba. Havana, 2 (15): 11-12, Apr. 1, 1963; "Final del repaso", in Unión. Havana, 4 (3): 145-149, Jul.-Sep., 1965.
Triana, José. "Apuntes sobre un libro de Arrufat", in La Gaceta de Cuba. Havana, 2 (18): 12-13, May 18, 1963.

Awards
Prize of Literary Criticism for La tierra permanente (theater) Prize of Literary Criticism in 1995 for the poetry book, Lirios sobre un fondo de espadas. National Prize for Literature, 2000. Prize of Literary Criticism for the novel La noche del aguafiestas. Alejo Carpentier Medal.