José Zacarías Tallet

José Zacarías Tallet, intimate friend and brother-in-law of Rubén Martínez Villena. He participates in the Protest of the Thirteen, at the Universidad Popular José Martí, in the Falange de Acción Cubana, in the Grupo Minorista. He collaborates in Alma Mater, Carteles, editor of Revista Avance, director of the magazine El Mundo, subdirector of the newspaper Ahora. He obtains in 1944 the Bonifacio Byrne Poetry Prize. Professor at the Manuel Márquez Sterling professional school of journalism. He is considered one of the initiators of black-themed poetry along with Nicolás Guillén, Regino Pedroso and others. Among his works is La semilla estéril.

He was born in Matanzas. During that vital period he wrote poems, chronicles and articles with such grace and originality that they left a profound mark on Cuban literature and journalism.

Tallet completed primary education and some secondary subjects, Latin and Greek with the Paúles Fathers, in his native city. Between 1912 and 1915 he attended the Heffley Institute of Commerce, in Brooklyn, where he graduated as an accountant and commercial expert. He remained in the United States until 1917. During his stay in North America he laid the foundations of his self-taught culture. He became a scholar in diverse areas (Spanish history and language, above all).

Upon returning to his homeland he performed various jobs in Havana: office clerk, bookkeeper, secretary, cashier, scribe... until in 1926 he entered journalism professionally, work he would never abandon. He was a cable translator, department head and director of the magazine of the newspaper El Mundo (1927-1933); subdirector of the newspaper Ahora (1933-1935); editorialist of El noticiero mercantil (1936); editor of the magazine Baraguá (1937); columnist and chronicler in El País and El Mundo for many years. He was a member of the board of directors of the magazine Venezuela Libre (1925) and editor of Revista de Avance (1927-1928). Furthermore, he collaborated with countless publications.

In 1922 Tallet establishes contact with the vanguard of Cuban intellectuals and together with them participates in a group of actions that shook society during the so-called "critical decade" (1923-1933): the Protest of the Thirteen, the Falange de Acción Cubana, the Grupo Minorista, the Movement of Veterans and Patriots, the Universidad Popular "José Martí" and the Anti-imperialist League.

José Zacarías Tallet publishes his first poems in 1923, in two magazines, and immediately gains recognition. His name begins to appear in Anthologies from 1926. In 1928 he writes "La rumba," one of the first texts of black poetry, which Berta Singerman would disseminate internationally. However, until 1951, when La semilla estéril appears, he does not manage to see his poetry collected in a book. After many years of silence, in 1965 a new poetic generation emerges in Cuba that recognizes him as one of its inspirational fathers and the poet is reborn.

Due to his intellectual prestige, Tallet was part of, since its founding in 1943, the faculty of the Escuela Profesional de Periodismo "Manuel Márquez Sterling." In 1959 he was appointed its director. In 1960 he directed a regional policy department in the ministry of foreign relations. In 1968 he officially retired from journalism, but continued collaborating with the magazine Bohemia in the "Gazapos" section, continuing work he had begun at El Mundo to contribute to the refinement of the Spanish language. Each week, in a brief paragraph, he displayed his erudition, his sense of humor, his brilliance. This continued until he said: "Goodbye, brothers, goodbye, until we meet again!"

Tallet married three times: in 1927, to Judit Martínez Villena (who died in 1938). To Teresa de Cárdenas, in 1940. And to Aida Mesa, in 1951. He had two children: Jorge (with Judit, in 1928); and Leticia (with Teresa, in 1941).

In 1984, José Zacarías Tallet received the National Literature Prize. That same year he was awarded the title of Doctor Honoris Causa at the University of Havana. For his high merits to culture and the nation, he was awarded the Orden Félix Varela, First Grade, in 1982. For his contribution to journalism, he deserved the Julius Fucik medal, by the OIP.

When death caught up with him, at ninety-six years old, Tallet had spent many years addressing it informally, mocking it, transcending it.