Jaime Sarusky Miller

Writer and journalist of Jewish origin. He has researched, delivered lectures, and published works on immigrant communities and minorities in Cuba.

He studied Social Sciences at the Universidad de La Habana. In 1954 he traveled to Paris to continue university studies at La Sorbona and take courses in Contemporary French Literature and Sociology.

He studied German in the former Federal Republic of Germany (FRG), where he began writing his novel La búsqueda, first published in Cuba in 1961.

In the sixties he worked on the Island as an editor and rotogravure chief of the newspaper Revolución, later as an editor of La Gaceta de Cuba (1965), chief of the supplement and cultural page of Granma (1967), and journalist for Bohemia (1971). He also collaborated with Lunes de Revolución, Casa de las Américas, and publications from the Soviet Union, France, the German Democratic Republic, Nicaragua, Mexico, Puerto Rico, Panama, and Brazil.

Sarusky delivered lectures in several countries on Cuban literature; likewise, on Scandinavian emigration and the Hindu community on the Island.

In the nineties he visited several cities in the United States to conduct cultural research, deliver lectures, and was invited by the Jewish Community Relations Council of San Francisco, California.

The cultural authorities of the Island dedicated the 2011 International Book Fair to him. Among other recognitions, he received the Distinction for National Culture.

In addition to La búsqueda, Sarusky published Rebelión en la octava casa (novel); El tiempo de los desconocidos (chronicles); La política cultural de Cuba (essay); Los fantasmas de Omaja (study of immigrant communities of Americans, Swedes, Japanese, Indo-Aryans, and Yucatecans in Cuba); El unicornio y otras invenciones (essays and chronicles); Diario de una revolución; Cuba: La imagen y la Historia, La aventura de los suecos en Cuba (essay), and Un hombre providencial (novel, Alejo Carpentier Prize), among other books.

La búsqueda (1961) and Rebelión en la octava casa (1966) received mentions from the Casa de las Américas prize. On several occasions he has been part of the juries for the "Casa de las Américas" literary prize and also in 1997 for the "Duca" Prize, the most important in Central American countries.

In 1984 he was invited by the Universidad de la Ciudad de los Científicos in Novosibirsk to deliver a lecture on contemporary Cuban literature and his work.

In 1965 he participated as a delegate at the International Congress of Writers held in Weimar, Germany.

In 1973 he obtained a journalism prize in Cuba in the genre of Short Stories.

In 1987 he participated in the Biennial of Lahtí, Finland, with a text about contemporary Cuban narrative works. That same summer he delivered lectures about the Scandinavian community in Cuba at the Institute of Latin American Studies at the University of Stockholm and at the "Fredrika Bremen" Foundation in that city. He also gave a lecture on Contemporary Cuban Literature and his work at the Center for Iberian Studies in Copenhagen.

In 1988 he participated as a delegate at the International Congress of Indo-Caribbean Studies held at York University, Canada, where he delivered a lecture about the Indo-Aryan community in Cuba.

In 1990 he delivered lectures on the Scandinavian community of Cuba at the "Fredrika Bremen" Foundation in Gothenburg, as well as at the Faculty of Latin American Literature of the University of that city.

In 1993 he was invited to deliver lectures on the Scandinavian community in Cuba at the Institute of Latin American Studies at the University of Stockholm, at the "Fredrika Bremen" Foundation in that city, and at the Institutes for Emigration in Våxjö, Sweden and Turku, Finland. He was also invited that summer to give lectures on Cuban culture at the Athenaeum of Gijón and the Sculpture Center of Candás, Spain, the latter sponsored by the University of Oviedo.

In July 1994 he participated as a delegate at the 48th International Congress of Americanists held in Stockholm, Sweden. His lecture addressed the topic of the Scandinavian community that settled in Cuba.

In 1995 he received the "Pablo de la Torriente Brau" Prize for his essay "Un héroe trágico," called for by the Faculty of Social Communication of the Universidad de La Habana.

In 1999 he was honored with the "José Antonio Fernández de Castro" Prize for his trajectory of more than 45 years practicing cultural journalism.

In 2000 he received the "Alejo Carpentier" Prize for his novel Un hombre providencial, the most important award in Cuban literature.

He participated in Baruch College of the City University of Nueva York in the International Anthroponymy Workshop with the work "Los Antropónimos cubanos en los noventa: evolución de las prácticas de nombrar". That spring his work La aventura de los suecos en Cuba was presented at the Universities of Stockholm and Gothenburg. In institutions of Gothenburg itself and Copenhagen he presented an overview of Cuba's Jewish community, as he had done the previous year in institutions of Nueva York and Hamptons.