Félix Benjamín Caignet Salomón

He was born in the town of Santa Rita de Burenes, San Luis, in the Santiago region. His parents were descendants of Franco-Haitian immigrants dedicated to the cultivation of coffee and sugar cane. Before school age, he moved to Santiago de Cuba with his family, who was going through economic difficulties. There he began his urban life, which was not debated in the salons of aristocracy, but rather in the streets of the city, learning stories from old storytellers. His training as a poet, writer, narrator, actor, painter and musician was self-taught.

He began in journalism, and his first reports were made in the courts of the old Judicial Power of Santiago de Cuba, in 1914. From that time date his first poems and theatrical works. Subsequently Caignet published children's narratives, with characters that achieved renown in newspapers and serials.

In the thirties he entered radio. At CMKC, sponsored by the "Group Catalunya", he produced the children's program "Good Afternoon, Little Guys", from 6:00 to 6:30 p.m., where he narrated pleasant and amusing stories of his own inspiration and of disparate themes. These followed the line of those he had heard as a child in the streets of Santiago. Notable is the influence that the storytellers exercised on the author, almost all of them Black descendants of slaves.

He then broadcast the children's series "Chilín y Bebita". With this program begin Caignet's substantial contributions to radio. Despite radio expansion in the country, no one had dedicated efforts to broadcasting for children, perhaps they did not consider it pertinent since broadcasts responded to other interests. Precisely Félix B., from Santiago de Cuba, is the initiator of the genre that, in addition to entertaining, was the program with the greatest didactic character. That is, radio was no longer only for adults, but the youngest found a place in this medium, in which great interest awakened. In this way Caignet introduces the episodic genre, which has its genesis in the stories he heard as a child and which have already been mentioned. This emotion of knowing how the stories would continue, the author had experienced firsthand and it is precisely what he repeats before the microphones, with the difference in role, from listener to narrator.

He later broadcast "El ratoncito Miguel", a children's song that he had premiered in 1932 at the Rialto theater. This was used by the people to protest against Machado. As a consequence, Caignet remained three days imprisoned in the Moncada Barracks and was released thanks to demonstrations by parents and children who sympathized with his programs.

As a radio writer, the author of The Right to Be Born achieved notable popularity with the episodes of the Chinese detective Chan Li Po. In the field of narrative, the work of Félix Benjamín Caignet always achieved its greatest prominence with his radio productions.

Music also inexorably marked the life of Félix Benjamín Caignet. His songs "Te odio", "Mentira", and others of this melodic style, had immediate acceptance in the popular music scene.

Caignet created compositions of all kinds, such as sones, pregones and guarachas, pieces that soon were commercialized and distributed throughout the rest of the world, among them "Carabalí" and "Frutas del Caney", perhaps the most popular of all his musical pieces.

Cuban to his roots, Félix Benjamín Caignet always knew how to reflect in his themes the feeling of identity that beat within him, for despite having settled for a time outside the homeland, he carried it in his heart.