Antonio Hernández Pérez

He was born in Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Canary Islands, but we consider him a native of Villa Clara and Cuban because when he was only one year old his family traveled to Cuba and settled in Yaguajay.

Antonio Hernández Pérez was one of the founders of the newspaper Juventud. From the age of 20, he served as a correspondent for several national newspapers.

He later moved to Caibarién, where he carried out the essential part of his poetic work, and outstanding cultural promotion work. He was co-owner of a fur store. He founded the literary workshop of Caibarién in 1967 and later, the magazine Con la Mies en Parva. Self-taught. He adopted Cuban citizenship in 1944. Around that time he was a member of the Villa Blanca group and was one of the founders of the magazine Archipiélago.

His collaborations appeared in Archipiélago (Caibarién), of which he was part of its editorial board; and in El País Gráfico, Vanidades, Surco, Cúspide (Central Merceditas, Havana), among other national publications. After the triumph of the Revolution, he attended meetings of new writers sponsored by the National Council of Culture.

He also served as president of a municipal literary workshop from 1969 to 1975. In the July 26 contest, he received mentions for his poetry collections Contigo comparto la poesía and En la ventana abierta, in 1969 and 1973, respectively. In 1970 he received the poetry prize from UNEAC for De pronto sales con tu voz.

In 1973 his poetry notebook "Entre la muerte, lunas rojas" was recommended for publication after receiving a mention in the Casa de las Américas contest, and his children's poetry book "En enero, la flor" won a mention in La Edad de Oro and was included, along with other texts by Emilio de Armas and Fidel Galbán, in the anthology Poesía (1974).

His creations were also collected in Poesía social cubana (1980) and published in Verde Olivo, Unión, Casa de las Américas, La Gaceta de Cuba, Romances, as well as in Vamos and Huella (Santa Clara), Hogaño (Camajuaní), Boletín del Poeta (Santiago de Cuba) and Con la mies en parvas (Caibarién).

Founding member of the literary circle Antonio Escobar. He left unpublished upon his death on July 5, 1975: "Contigo comparto la poesía," "En la ventana abierta," "Yo digo mi valle" and "Mares como estos," and countless poems. The Manuel Corona cultural center in Caibarién has established the Antonio Hernández Pérez Special Sonnet Prize.

Since 2000, at the initiative of the poetess María Elena Salado and her circle, they commemorate Local Poetry Day in Caibarién every May 21.

On the eve of the XVII International Book Fair, 2008, the book La poesía no se detiene was presented at the Literary Café in Santa Clara, an anthology of the best of his poetry, published in 2007 by the publisher Idea, from the Canary Islands, and with the testimonial introduction by the renowned researcher and friend of his, René Batista Moreno, and during the XVIII edition of this book event in 2009, a panel dedicated to his centennial was held at the Provincial Cultural Heritage Center of Villa Clara.

He published the following titles: Viento sin pautas (Tamayo Graphic Workshops, Havana, 1947); De pronto sales con tu voz (UNEAC, Havana, 1971) (Julián del Casal Poetry Prize, UNEAC, 1970); Los árboles (Cuban Book Institute, Havana, 1975) (Mention in poetry in the July 26 contest, 1974), and Palo verde (1978) (Mention in poetry in the July 26 contest, 1975).