César Antonio de Jesús López Núñez

Poet, narrator, essayist, diplomat, writer, literary-medical critic and Cuban professor. National Literature Prize 1999. His best-known work is Three Books about the City, which has been awarded on several occasions.

He was born in Santiago de Cuba. He completed his primary studies, graduating as a bachiller in 1950, in his native city, and later studied Philosophy and Letters at the University of Havana, in Madrid and Salamanca.

In Spain he obtained his doctorate in Medicine from the University of Salamanca, graduating in 1959, and completed incomplete studies in Philosophy and Letters. He is a full member of the Cuban Academy of the Language and a corresponding member of the Royal Spanish Academy.

Between 1960 and 1962 ―following the Triumph of the Cuban Revolution― he worked as Cuba's consul in the city of Glasgow (Scotland). Upon his return to Cuba, he served as head of the advisory department for Western Europe at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in the period 1962 to 1963.

He has been coordinating secretary of the Literature Section of the National Union of Writers and Artists of Cuba (UNEAC) and secretary of activities of the Pen-Club of Cuba.

As a literature professor he worked at the Raúl Cepero Bonilla Preuniversity Institute from 1964 to 1965 and in the theater groups of the National Council of Culture. In 1972 he began working at the Academy of Sciences of Cuba, first in its Translation Department and later in the Institute of Scientific-Technical Documentation and Information.

As a writer, he became known in the magazine Ciclón, one of the precursors of the Cuban literary vanguard and founded by the renowned playwright and narrator Virgilio Piñera.

He collaborated in the homonymous magazine of the Ciclón Group. He also collaborated with Lunes de Revolución and in other Cuban and foreign publications, among which stand out Unión, La Gaceta de Cuba, Casa de Las Américas, Revolución y Cultura, El Caimán Barbudo, Siempre and abroad, in Siempre and Parva (from Mexico), Vanguardia (from Colombia), Poor Old Tired House (from the United Kingdom), Ínsula and Ruedo Ibérico (from Paris).

Several of his poems and stories have been translated into English, French, Russian, German, Hungarian, Italian, Romanian, Czech, Bulgarian, Greek and Japanese. He has translated from English Lawrence Durrell, and from French, the Greek poet Yannis Ritzos.

His poetry has made him one of the most relevant voices of Cuba in the second half of the twentieth century. Although he has also ventured into narrative and essay, he is considered, with his three Books of the City, as one of the most significant writers within Cuban poetry of the twentieth century.

He served as coordinating secretary of the Literature Section of UNEAC.

In 1996, he was awarded the distinction of Full Member of the Cuban Academy of the Language and Corresponding Member of the Spanish Academy of the Language in 1997.

Among other honors, he holds the National Literature Prize in 1999, the distinction for National Culture; the distinction of Chevalier de L'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, Paris; the distinction "José María Heredia" of his native city, Santiago de Cuba, the Alejo Carpentier Medal (2000); the Aldabón de la Periquera. Holguín (2000); the Gold Plaque of the University of Oriente. Santiago de Cuba (2000); the Pedagogical Merit of the Higher Institute of Art. Havana (2000); Shield of the city Santa Clara (2000); Axe of Holguín (2000); the Centenary Medal of Nicolás Guillén. Havana (2002); Shield of the city of Santiago de Cuba (2003) and was named Distinguished Visitor of Santiago de los Caballeros, Dominican Republic (2004).

Active Bibliography
Poetry:

Silence in the Voice of Death, Ediciones Unión, Havana, 1963; Editorial Letras Cubanas, 2005.
Notes for a Small Journey, Ediciones La Tertulia, Havana, 1965.
First Book of the City, Ediciones Unión, Havana, 1967.
The Search and Its Sign. Provisional Inventories, Las Palmas, Spain, 1971; Editorial Letras Cubanas, Havana, 1989.
Second Book of the City, Editorial Ocnos, Barcelona, Spain, 1971; Ediciones Unión, Havana, 1989; New Delhi, 1996.
Breakage of Perfection, Ediciones Unión, Havana, 1983.
Ceremonies and Ceremonials, Editorial Letras Cubanas, Havana, 1988. Ediciones Holguín (Ático Collection), 2002.
Considerations, Some Elegies, Editorial Orígenes, S. A., Madrid, 1990; Editorial Letras Cubanas, Havana, 1993.
Double Mirror for Denigrating Death, Ediciones extramuros, Havana, 1991.
Six Slightly Ingenuous Songs, Taller Tórculo II, Spain, 1992
Steps, Stroll, Passageways. Udine, Italy, 1996.
Third Book of the City, Seville, 1997; Editorial Letras Cubanas, Havana, 1999
Book of the City, Ediciones Unión, Havana, 2001.
Hands of a Wanderer, Editorial Oriente, 2005.
Ibero-American Poetic Summit, anthology of Salamanca. Fundación Salamanca, 2005.
Narrative:

Circling the Square, Eds. Revolución, Havana, 1963; Editorial Europa, Hungary, 1969; Editorial Alfaguara, Spain, 1986; Editorial Maurice Nadeau, France, 1990.
Scope of Mirrors, Editorial Letras Cubanas, Havana, 1986.
Circling the Square (Anthology of his Complete Stories), Editorial Letras Cubanas, Havana, 2000.
Cuba Stories and Tales of Today (Anthology of Cuban storytellers). Ediciones L'Harmattan, Paris, 1985.
Critical and Annotated Editions:
Theater, by Ibsen. Editora del Consejo Nacional de Cultura, 1964.
The Blue Angel, by Heinrich Mann, 1966.
Poetry, by Pedro Salinas, Consejo Nacional de Cultura, Havana, 1966
Oppiano Licario, by José Lezama Lima, 1989.
Complete Poetry of Dulce María Loynaz, 1993; 2002.
Death of Narcissus and Other Poems, by José Lezama Lima, Editorial Letras Cubanas, Havana, 1996.
Poetic Anthology of Luis Cernuda, Editorial Arte y Literatura, 1996.
Harp of Living Trunks, Editorial Letras Cubanas, Havana, 1999.
Complete Poetry, by José Lezama Lima, Alianza Editorial, Madrid, 1999. Prologue and selection of poems by Manuel Altolaguirre, Editorial Arte y Literatura, 2005.
Periodical Publications:

"On Current Cuban Poetry," in Unión, No. 4, Havana, Oct.-Dec., 1967, pp. 186-189.
"The Road and the Elegies," in Unión, No. 2, Havana, Apr.-Jun., 1987.
"Psalms and Commentaries," in El Caimán Barbudo, No. 233, Havana, Apr., 1987, pp. 23-25.
"The Vibration of the Word," in Revolución y Cultura, No. 11, Nov., 1987, pp. 70-71.
"Cuba and Poetry," in Sur, Málaga, Jun., 1988.
"Moral Insistence of Poetry in Cuba," in Casa de las Américas, No. 10, Havana, Feb., 1989, p. 6.
"Possibility of Poetry and Flight," in La Gaceta de Cuba, No. 3, Havana, Mar., 1989, p. 29.
"Tribulations, Texts, Memory," in Letras Cubanas, No. 14, Havana, Apr.-Jun., 1990, pp. 254-260.