Luis Rogelio Rodríguez Noguera

Wichy was born in El Vedado. His childhood takes place within a petit bourgeois family with intellectual concerns.

His mother, Gloria Nogueras Hernández Catá, writes as a hobby and goes on to win the Alfonso Hernández Catá short story prize, a prestigious Cuban writer of whom she was a niece, making him Wichy's great-uncle. Luis Rogelio, his father, an advertising executive and journalist, instills in the boy a love of reading.

His uncle Ángel Heberto, a fervent Martí enthusiast with whom he lived much of his life, directed a literary magazine in Puerto Padre, his native town. His maternal grandmother, who took care of Wichy during much of his childhood and adolescence, hires a literature teacher to give him private classes at home.

He completes primary school through the fourth grade at Colegio Trelles, located at 23 and B, near his house in El Vedado.

In 1952 his family moves to the Víbora neighborhood, where Luis Rogelio is enrolled in the Caribbean Military Academy, a secular institution, where he studies Commerce, which he does not complete, until 1960.

Around eleven years old (1955) he writes a small story influenced by reading Tom Sawyer. Also around that time he makes his first trip to the United States accompanying his paternal grandmother.

At the triumph of the Revolution, at fourteen years old, he edits a magazine called Libertad, from the Association of Students of the Caribbean Military Academy, where he publishes a poem.

In 1960, after his departure from the Caribbean Military Academy he reunites with his mother in Venezuela, a place where she had resided since 1956.

Through his mother's intervention he is able to enter a summer course on advertising taught at the University of Caracas.

During that time he participates in an amateur group as an actor. He also works at the Tuma Film company as a set assistant, camera assistant and laboratory assistant. He makes a short fiction film in 8 mm, in which he also acts.

At the end of 1960 he sets fire to a Bohemia Libre magazine sales stand together with some friends. Due to his participation in this act he is expelled from Venezuela, so he must return to Cuba.

In May 1961 he begins working at the Cuban Institute of Cinematographic Art and Industry. He works for about three months with Octavio Cortazar on the making of the Popular Encyclopedia, ten-minute shorts that would support the National Literacy Campaign. Later he moves to the Animation Department, where he works as a draftsman, camera assistant and subsequently, director of short films in the group directed by Enrique Nicanor González.

In 1963, he already writes scripts and executes designs for animated films. He works as a camera assistant in Macroti, a Cuban feature, and is in charge of the animation of Gallito de papel.

He begins filming Sueño en el parque, an eight-minute color short film, also known as La raya, which was exhibited at several European animation film festivals, including that of Mamaia, Romania.

He draws and paints as a hobby and also writes some short stories that he considers to be of poor quality.

In 1964 he begins studying at the University of Havana, in the School of Letters, where he enrolls in a degree in Spanish and Spanish-American Language and Literature.

Due to the distance of the animation studies (they were in Cubanacán, on the outskirts of the city) he is forced to leave ICAIC and begins working as a desk editor for Cuba Internacional magazine, which was directed at that time by Lisandro Otero, where he publishes his first journalistic works (reports, chronicles, interviews).

In that same year of 1964 Gallito de papel is exhibited at the Leipzig Festival.

In 1965 he participates in an exhibition of mural poems at the Faculty of Letters and joins the Hermanos Saiz Literary Brigade.

The premiere of Un sueño en el parque takes place and Gallito de papel participates in the Annecy Festival, France.

Without finishing his university studies (1966) he is invited by Guillermo Rodríguez Rivera to participate with Jesús Díaz, Víctor Casaus, Raúl Rivero and other young writers and the draftsman Posada in the editorial project of El Caimán Barbudo, which in its early days was a supplement to the newspaper Juventud Rebelde. Its first issue appears in March. He signs the manifesto "Nos pronunciamos," a declaration of principles of the young intellectuals linked to El Caimán Barbudo. Between April and December of that year (1966) he publishes some of his first poems in that publication.

During that time he had continued his work at Cuba Internacional magazine as secretary of the editorial board, but when Guillermo Rodríguez Rivera left the editorial staff (he had been appointed to do diplomatic work in Mexico), he replaces him as editor-in-chief of El Caimán Barbudo.

Casa de las Américas magazine publishes two poems from his unpublished book Cabeza de zanahoria, which by error appear under the name Luis Rogelio Nogueira.

In January 1967 he participates with Mexican critic Emmanuel Carballo and other young writers in a conversation about young literature from Mexico and Cuba convened by Casa de las Américas.

This year is very important for Nogueras, as his poetry collection Cabeza de zanahoria is awarded, together with Casa que no existía by Lina de Feria, in the first edition of the David Prize from the Union of Writers and Artists of Cuba (UNEAC).

He participates in the recital Teresita y nosotros, organized by El Caimán Barbudo at the National Museum of Fine Arts, in tribute to the troubadour Teresita Fernández. At that event the first public presentation of the troubadour Silvio Rodríguez took place.

He writes the texts of Exposicuba, a book presented at Expo'67, held in Montreal, Canada, which he attends. He participates in the Literary Encounter held at the Youth Pavilion. He visits Niagara Falls.

Gallito de papel is exhibited at the Cuban Film Week in Guinea.

After returning from Venezuela, he begins to work at the Cuban Institute of the Book, where he performs different tasks such as: literary researcher, editor and writer. He provides his services at different publishing houses until 1979.

In 1967 he marries Virgen Gutiérrez, a fellow student.

In February 1968 he participates in the program Mientras tanto, broadcast on Channel 4 (which later ceased to exist) of the Cuban Institute of Radio and Television (ICRT), hosted by Silvio Rodríguez. He speaks about his poetry collection Cabeza de zanahoria, selected as one of the ten best books published in Cuba in 1967.

In May 1968 he is part of a café conversation with Mario Benedetti and Eliseo Diego dedicated to the book Poemas, by Ernesto Cardenal.

He participates in the Cultural Congress of Havana. He is part of the team that develops the paper "Popular Art and High Art," presented to Commission No. 5.

He collaborates with filmmaker Octavio Cortazar in narrating the short film Acerca de un personaje que algunos llaman San Lázaro y otros Babalú.

In October 1968 he ceases his duties as editor-in-chief of El Caimán Barbudo.

In December, element 344, Luis Rogelio Nogueras, staff sergeant of his platoon, undergoes two weeks of military training together with students, teachers and employees of the Faculty of Humanities of the University of Havana at the El Guayabal camp, located in Tapaste, south of Havana.

He divorces from Virgen Gutiérrez.

In November 1969 he travels to Santiago de Cuba invited by the School of Letters of the University of Oriente to give some poetry recitals. In that same year he meets Felicia Cortiñas, director of Editorial Pluma en Ristre, where he works as an editor and is a member of the Advisory Board. A year later he begins a romantic relationship with Felicia, from whom in 1971 his only daughter Ámbar is born, the same name as his only sister.

In 1971 the First Congress of Education and Culture is held, the application of its agreements and resolutions will negatively influence the development of Cuban cultural life in the coming years. As a result of this Wichy goes to work at Workshop 04 Urselia Díaz Baez, of the National Printing House of Cuba, located at Zulueta and Corrales, where he works as a linotype assistant for just over two years, until in 1974 he goes to work for Editorial Pueblo y Educación (first as a proofreader and later as an editor), which at that time belonged to the Cuban Institute of the Book, where he meets Neyda Izquierdo with whom he marries on March 5, 1975. He works at Pueblo y Educación for about four years.

Interested in the poetic work of Eliseo Diego he begins to write a study, unfortunately lost, on the poetry of this great Cuban poet. From this work only a questionnaire has been rescued, a manuscript, which those who have read it describe as a valuable document not only for its content but also for its beauty and tenderness.

In 1972 he edits a humorous pamphlet related to the life and incidents of Workshop 04. These sheets, printed on paper scraps, were characterized by their humor full of Cuban spirit. These sheets have also been lost and exist only in the memory of those who shared that period of Wichy's life, which was very important for him and he always spoke with great affection about the Workshop 4 colleagues, as he called them. Years later when he writes El cuarto círculo together with Guillermo Rodríguez Rivera he creates a character from that workshop era.

Since 1973 he had finished writing the poems that make up Las quince mil vidas del caminante, an undertaking begun in 1967 that did not see the light until 1977.

In 1974 he organizes a small recital by Silvio Rodríguez at Editorial Pueblo y Educación.

In 1975 he works as co-screenwriter on Octavio Cortazar's documentary Las Marianas, which has never been released. He continues working with Cortazar this time on the screenplay for the feature film El brigadista, which premieres in December 1976 as a tribute to Teachers' Day and to Conrado Benítez.

Also in 1976 his novel El cuarto círculo, written in collaboration with Guillermo Rodríguez Rivera, wins first prize in the Anniversary Contest of the Triumph of the Revolution of the Ministry of the Interior.

The year 1977 is important for Nogueras, as his spy novel Y si muero mañana wins the UNEAC Cirilo Villaverde Novel Prize, the first time a work of this genre wins this prize.

In 1978, he reads excerpts from his published work at the workshops held for the Casa de las Américas prize, in a meeting with Argentine writer Julio Cortazar.

In February he participates in a tribute to Bertolt Brecht, sponsored by the Embassy of the German Democratic Republic and UNEAC.

In September the Book Saturday presents Y si muero mañana. The journalist Orlando Castellanos also interviews him on the program Formalmente Informal, broadcast on Radio Habana Cuba.

In connection with the Soviet Literature Day to be celebrated in October, he travels to the Soviet Union, where bilateral agreements are established between the unions of writers of Cuba and the USSR.

He participates together with Cuban writer Desiderio Navarro in the Georgian Culture Days. He visits Tbilisi and also Riga, capital of Soviet Latvia. He visits the tomb of the Latvian poet Janis Rainis (1865-1929), some of whose poems he will later translate into Spanish.

The film El brigadista wins numerous awards: the Silver Bear at the West Berlin Film Festival, the first one won by Cuban cinema; at the San Sebastián Festival and the Pelayo Prize, in Gijón, Spain; the Special Prize of Celuloide magazine, at the 8th Film Festival of Santarem, Portugal, and the Distinction of the Komsomol of Uzbekistan at the Tashkent Festival.

He travels to Prague.

In 1979 the Cienfuegos painter Leandro Soto illustrates his poem "Coincidence". The Polish magazine Literatura na Swiecie publishes several of his poems.

In March the exhibition of mural poems Decíamos Viet Nam is presented in the Martínez Villena Hall of UNEAC. His poem was illustrated by Juan Moreira.

In April he participates together with Víctor Casaus, Raúl Rivero and Eliseo Diego in the First Cuban Poetry Festival, held in Santiago de Cuba.

He works with Miguel Torres on the project of the book Historia de una batalla, which would cover 20 years of Cuban cinema from the founding of ICAIC. This book has not been published.

He participates in the Colloquium on Crime Literature, XVIII Anniversary of MININT, organized in June by the Literature Section of UNEAC, where he presents the paper "Crime Literature and Artistic Experimentation".

He serves on the jury of the National Radio and TV Contest in the documentary genre.

During the celebration of Carifesta'79 he participates in a meeting with Caribbean poets.

He travels to Hungary, where he attends the Colloquium on Literature for Children and Young People. He participates with Eliseo Diego in the International Encounter of Writers, held in the city of Szekszard, near Budapest. There he visits the birthplace of Mihaly Babits. He gives lectures at some Hungarian universities.

He travels to Sweden and gives the lectures "The Crime Novel in Cuba" and "Cuban Literature Today" at Stockholm University and at the Cronopios Club, respectively. He participates in literary colloquia at the Association of Spanish Teachers and at Uppsala University. He is interviewed for the literary program Bokfonstret (The Book Window), from the Sveriges Radio station, as well as for the Spanish-language broadcasts of the international service of Swedish Radio. The Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter publishes reviews of Y si muero mañana.

He visits Finland and again the Soviet Union.

In November he travels to Krakow, Poland, visits the Auschwitz concentration camp, which inspires him to write the poem "Halt!", dedicated to the victims of fascism.

He is appointed National Literature Advisor of the Ministry of Culture MINCULT.

He writes with Octavio Cortázar the screenplay for the film Guardafronteras.

In 1980, now as a literary advisor he gives a lecture on the crime novel at the University of Oriente.

In May he goes to work at ICAIC as a screenwriter and is later appointed editor-in-chief of the magazine Cine Cubano, of which he edits ten issues (101 to 111).

The film Guardafronteras receives mention in the selection of the most significant films shown during the previous year in Cuba.

He attends the prestigious Karlovy Vary International Film Festival.

He visits Dámaso Alonso in Madrid, president of the Royal Spanish Academy.

He intervenes in the seminar New Cinema and Literature in Our America, held during the 2nd Latin American New Cinema Festival. He presents the papers "Symbolic Language, Iconic Language, Semantic Transfers. Moving Images, Linguistic Signs: Approaches and Differences" and "Film Criticism as an Expression and Instrument of Culture".

He participates in the Encounter of Intellectuals for the Sovereignty of the Peoples of Our America, held at Casa de las Américas in January 1981.

The radio station Radio Progreso broadcasts Y si muero mañana in its Special Agent space at seven thirty in the evening.

Y si muero mañana is published in Sweden. The most important daily newspapers in Stockholm dedicate glowing reviews to it.

He travels to Denmark, Czechoslovakia and Vietnam. In the latter, he attends a Cuban Film Week where the film El brigadista is presented. He begins to write a poetry collection that he plans to call Puro fuego and a novel: Ama al cisne salvaje, a title taken from a verse by American poet Robinson Jeffers.

He writes with Miguel Torres the screenplay for the film Leyenda.

A jury made up of Argentine Juan Gelman, Mexican José Emilio Pacheco, Cuban Fayad Jamis and Peruvian Antonio Cisneros awards him the Poetry Prize in the Casa de las Américas Contest for his poetry collection Imitación de la vida. In their verdict they expressed that the work constituted a "contribution to Castilian lyric poetry".

He signs the Appeal for the Sovereign and Democratic Rights of the Peoples of Our America.

He maintains a Saturday commentary on literature on Tele Rebelde channel.

He travels again to Vietnam, this time with documentary filmmaker Bernabe Hernández. They visit the General Film Studies, where they conduct working sessions and participate in the Cuban Film Week held in Hanoi.

He travels to the USSR and interviews writer Vladimir Bogomolov.

He gives lectures at some North American universities invited by Peruvian professor Irene Vegas. He visits Miami and New York.

In 1982 he publishes Nosotros los sobrevivientes, a novel based on the screenplay of the film Leyenda.

The Soviet magazine Inostrannaya Literatura publishes a version of the review of Nosotros los sobrevivientes originally published in Juventud Rebelde.

The feature film Guardafronteras is presented at the Moscow International Film Festival. The film receives a Special Prize from the Soviet Committee for Peace at the 7th Tashkent Festival.

He receives the Girasol Prize awarded by Opina magazine.

He travels to Canada and Denmark. In both cases to attend the Cuban Film Week.

He visits the Ethnological Museum of Riga, Latvia.

He travels to Nicaragua invited by the Union of Writers of the Sandinista Association of Cultural Workers (ASTC). He visits Waspan and Masaya and travels with Víctor Casaus more than fifteen hundred kilometers through military units and border posts of the Zelaya Norte Department. During this journey they conduct different presentations, including a poetry reading at the Fernando Gordillo House of Culture. He participates in the Colloquium for the XX Anniversary of the Ministry of the Interior (MININT). He discusses the topic "Cuban Crime Literature and Its Ideological Possibilities".

He participates as a judge for the Casa de las Américas Prize 1982 in the novel genre.

He travels to New Delhi and visits the Taj Mahal.

In the autumn of this year Radio Vltava, from Prague, broadcasts his poem "Halt!" in Czech in a Sunday program dedicated to events in Beirut.

In 1983 he visits Moscow again and during his stay is interviewed for América Latina magazine.

He publishes his poetry book El último caso del Inspector.

He writes with Víctor Casaus the screenplay for the documentary "Que levante la mano la guitarra," directed by the latter, about the life and work of troubadour Silvio Rodríguez.

He participates in a tribute to Pablo Milanés where he reads some of his poems at the recital Para vivir, held in March as part of activities for the XXIV Anniversary of ICAIC.

He works with Venezuelan writer Ednodio Quintero and filmmaker Michael New on the screenplay for the Cuban-Venezuelan co-production Cubagua. For this purpose he travels to Venezuela in April.

On June 17 he gives the lecture "Cuban Literature Tomorrow" at the Simón Bolívar chair at the University of Los Andes. He appears on the radio program Nueva Imagen.

He gives the lecture "Cinema and Literature" in Mérida and teaches the seminar "Dramaturgy and Screenwriting Technique".

He participates in the tribute to the centenary of the birth of Franz Kafka, held at the Municipal Institute of Culture in Caracas, where he delivers the lecture "Kafka and Marxism".

He travels again to Spain. In Alcalá de Henares he visits the birthplace of Miguel de Cervantes and Saavedra.

The Slovak magazine Slovenske Pohlady (Slovak Views) publishes a glowing review of El cuarto círculo.

He participates in the Gala for the XXV Years of the Organs of Cuban State Security (1984) for which he prepares the screenplay together with Eliseo Alberto Diego and Rogelio París. He reads some of his poems.

He travels to Italy to attend the Pesaro Film Festival. He takes part in the International Conference on Cuban Literature held in Havana between September 12 and 15.

At the end of September he visits the famous Shakespeare and Company bookstore in Paris.

He returns to Spain, stays in Madrid, Barcelona, Galicia and other places.

He visits Prague again.

In December 1984 the first symptoms of the illness appear, although the severity was not yet known.

In February 1985 he undergoes surgery. At that point it is known that recovery will be impossible and that his days of life will be few.

In March the book Silvio: que levante la mano la guitarra is presented at the National Museum of Fine Arts, in collaboration with Víctor Casaus. They donate the author rights to the Farabundo Martí Front.

He works with Eduardo Heras León on the screenplay for a film for filmmaker Manuel Pérez; he cannot complete it.

He dies on July 6, 1985 from melanoma (skin cancer).

At the end of July UNEAC awards him posthumously a Commemorative Plaque, signed by Nicolás Guillén, "for the relevance of his work over 25 years, on the occasion of the XII Festival of Youth and Students.

In October Casa de las Américas organizes a conversation about the political, narrative and cinematographic work of Luis Rogelio Nogueras. Some of his poems are heard in his voice. Eduardo Heras León speaks about his unpublished novel Las manos vacías or Enciclofería. An exhibition is inaugurated with manuscripts, letters, photos and other graphic materials.

In 1990 the Luis Rogelio Nogueras bookstore is inaugurated at Galiano and San José.