Manuel González Bello

Cuban journalist. Born in Chambas, Ciego de Ávila, in 1949. Manuel moved to the Capital as a child; and although he tried to be an actor, he ended up graduating in Journalism from the University of La Habana in 1974.

He then began his professional life at the newspaper Victoria, on the Isle of Youth. He later practiced journalism at Bohemia, Radio Habana Cuba and Juventud Rebelde.

He collaborated with numerous national and foreign publications, and received important awards, among them the Juan Gualberto Gómez 2000, the highest recognition for the year's work by a journalism professional.

Author of several books, among which are Trilogía de ensayos sobre Pablo de la Torriente Brau, El Canciller, El hombre de Che Guevara and Pablo, entre la bruma y la muerte.

His chronicles, articles and reports enhanced the first editions of La Jiribilla and the tabloid El Economista.

He was an adjunct professor at the Faculty of Communication of the University of La Habana. He received the Premio Memoria for his testimony book about Raúl Roa.

Bello's work spans a broad spectrum of brilliance. From the great reports in Bohemia magazine in the 80s, to articles and commentaries; from customary subjects to economic and political ones; always in search of the revealing detail of human interest to win over the audience.

When he arrived at the national newspaper Juventud Rebelde (JR) in the mid-1990s, he was already one of the respected figures of the profession in Cuba. There he became a true master of young journalists, and one of the most-read chroniclers of the time.

From 1999 to 2001, from the side of page eight of JR, Bello would construct every Saturday a world in sixty lines. The "humble chronicler" who inhabited these letters, with a very alert index finger, became an accomplice in the Cuban jokes he chronicled.

"A lovely verb that one: to chronicle. Because it means to tell, to bear witness, to expose customs and essences. It's like narrating small life; the kind that is so immense." "Before chronicling you have to observe, study, think"…"the very Manolo" left written.

In his Saturday deliveries, Bello managed to rescue some of the best qualities of the genre in Cuba by linking, with refined technique, humorous, customary and literary elements. In the crafting of his words you can smell the Estampas Costumbristas (1941-1958) of Eladio Secades; or the Creole laughter of Héctor Zumbado in those sections—Limonada and Riflexiones—that appeared in the very youth newspaper during the 1970s.

The style of the Saturday lines shows the seasoned writer who always remained attached to the literary dream. His talent and craft in writing manifested throughout his life, but singularly in these final years that coincided with the section.

Such texts are distinguished by subtle and chameleon-like irony, references to universal and popular culture; elements of fiction with which he enriched real referents; linguistic acrobatics; vivid descriptions and natural dialogues that expressed his ability to observe, memorize and dramatically represent a scene.

Under picaresque images of Creole flavor and pungent pranks, behind the appearance of trivial matters, lie the heartbeats anchored in the popular imagination. Thus, we see Manolo criticize musak in buildings and automobiles, look stupefied at the paradigmatic, or rather paradogmatic criteria of bureaucrats; censure the sale of spoiled products; complain about the fax when it becomes a faxnoyance because it doesn't print well; lament the unsociability of some people, and the so many "no"s of others who live knotted up; warn of so many people who go off on a tangent, and laugh at the ridiculous scenes where parents become child-tamers.

Chronicle 105 halted the weekly wanderings of this dreaming adventurer, on November 3rd, 2001, when he announced: "And now I say goodbye. I leave as I came: light on luggage, with a clean conscience and a smile. I've already used up my turn, let the next one pass."

A few months later, exactly on Friday, May 31st, 2002, the editorial office of his blue newspaper received bad news. The next day, on the same page 8 that had hosted the Saturday Chronicles for more than two years, a desolate phrase appeared: "Manuel González Bello died, one of the most brilliant Cuban journalists."

The Saturday Chronicle was a unique space in the national press, unrepeatable even a decade later. The lecture on humor and journalistic sense that Manolo practiced masterfully makes it one of the best collections of texts of the same genre within Cuban journalism.

He died in La Habana on May 31st, 2002.