Reynaldo González Zamora

Member of the Cuban Academy of Language. One of the most prestigious Cuban essayists. Journalist, Cuban editor. National Literature Prize in 2003. His pen is responsible for seminal texts for understanding Cuban culture. His prose, always well-documented, is enriched with a peculiar sense of humor, to address themes ranging from history and memory to immediacy and literary assessments. One of the preeminent figures in contemporary Cuban literature. National Literature Prize and National Prize for Cultural Journalism.

He was born in Ciego de Ávila. In his hometown he completed primary school, upper secondary school and the School of Commerce. Between 1956 and 1959 he held various jobs, including that of bank employee. In 1960 he enrolled in the School of Fine Arts and joined the Association of Young Rebels. He was a literacy volunteer brigade member in 1961. In Camagüey he held the position of Provincial Cultural Officer and was a member of the Provincial Committee of the UJC.

He began early in journalism, with contributions to the Camagüey newspaper Adelante, and as chief editor of the magazine Pueblo y Cultura, an organ of the National Council of Culture, in 1962. He directed the cultural page of the newspaper Revolución between 1963 and 1965, and was founder of the magazine Revolución y Cultura in its first version named Revolution et/and Culture.

As an editor at the publishing houses Unión and Ciencias Sociales, he was in charge of works by prestigious authors such as José Lezama Lima, a writer whom he has written extensively about in his essays. He also created, around that time, biographies of Salvador García Agüero and Jesús Menéndez.

His essayistic work stands out for the desire to rediscover Cuban culture and history. La fiesta de los tiburones introduces what has come to be called "choral testimony" in the genre and deals with the first quarter-century of the Republican period. It was conceived by the author during the 1970 sugar harvest, at the Venezuela sugar mill (formerly Stewart) where he lived and worked, based on testimonies from a group of elderly workers. With this text Reynaldo González introduces what is now known as oral history studies.

His collection of essays Contradanzas y latigazos has an interdisciplinary approach (social, historical, cultural) to the work of Cirilo Villaverde and his era. It opens new perspectives on the novel Cecilia Valdés, by establishing a series of connections with its contexts. He received the 1983 National Prize for Literary Criticism for this work, and its second edition (1992) was graced with an epilogue by Manuel Moreno Fraginals.

In Llorar es un placer he ventures to study melodrama through mass media, work that continues in the book Félix B. Caignet, el más humano de los autores. Meanwhile, in El Bello Habano. Biografía íntima del tabaco, with a prologue by Manuel Vázquez Montalbán, he dedicates himself to reconstructing an intimate line of national history.

He dedicates three collections of essays to Lezama Lima, an author whom he considers a paradigm of creolity, as well as of universality. Lezama Lima: el ingenuo culpable (1988), Lezama sin pedir permiso (2007) and Lezama revisitado (2009) constitute a triad containing approaches to various themes in the life and work of the Cuban writer. From a knowledge ranging from the literary to the affectionate, Reynaldo González explains Lezama's work and the complex context in which it developed after the revolutionary triumph.

The fictional work of Reynaldo González emphasizes experimentation and skillful command of language. Siempre la muerte, su paso breve (Honorable Mention for the "Casa de las Américas" Prize 1968) is a significant novel of the sixties given its intention to break with strict molds of traditional narrative, both thematic and structural. In it he creates a space parallel to his hometown that he names Ciego del Ánima and thus expresses, through the symbolic referent, the cultural intimacy of the real space. The anthropological approach to the period before the Revolution, as well as the certainty in the handling of language, make this text a representative paradigm of the new artistic freedom that was taking shape among young people of that time. However, the 1968 novel was limited in its forms of expression by some critical observations that the author received, so it was rewritten and returned to its original conception in 2009.

In 1993 he won the Juan Rulfo Prize from Radio France International for the story La mujer impenetrable and in 2000 the "Italo Calvino" Prize for his novel Al cielo sometidos. The author demonstrates in this work his command of language, since he employs a literarized Spanish, close to that of the fifteenth century, in homage to the picaresque novel. For this book he received the National Prize for Literary Criticism in 2001 and the Cuban Academy of Language Prize in 2005.

In 2003 he published his volume of poems Envidia de Adriano, with a prologue by Pablo Armando Fernández. The "Sonetos amorosos" that open the book stand out for their troubadour airs. About his poetry, Pablo Armando has said that "it is pure spiritual occurrence, the word exercises its primordial destiny: to reestablish dialogue between reality and dream, man and life".

For eleven years Reynaldo González directed the Cinemateca de Cuba. His keen perspective on Cuban cinema is recorded in the book Cine cubano, ese ojo que nos ve, where he surveys from the beginnings of the seventh art on the Island to the present day. The author presents Cuban cinema to us as a process of observation and narration of island history, which at each moment has mixed voices, purposes, political fluctuations, figures, institutions and cultural paradigms. The variety of this book becomes coherent based on the critical purpose that moves it: to investigate the history of cinema and analyze how cinema, in turn, has narrated the history of the Island.

During the 2002 International Book Fair in Ciego de Ávila he was granted the distinction "Illustrious Son of the City" by the Provincial Government. The 2009 International Book Fair was dedicated to him.

Reynaldo González is a full member of the Cuban Academy of Language, corresponding member of the RAE, since March 2005. His texts have been translated into German, French, English, Italian and Polish. He has given lectures on cultural and historical topics at universities and other institutions in Cuba, Brazil, Chile, Germany, Spain, the United States, France, among other countries.

His books have received the National Prize for Literary Criticism in various years (1983, 1988, 1989, 2001, 2005, 2009, 2010). He received the National Literature Prize (2003) and the National Prize for Cultural Journalism (2007).

Reynaldo González is an author distinguished by the versatility of his work and his work as a promoter and scholar of Cuban culture. He currently directs the literary magazine La Siempreviva, where he proposes to host cultural dissemination and the exercise of literary criticism on diverse topics, linked to the world of books.

He is the author of critical works and co-author of Che Comandante. Biografía de Ernesto Che Guevara (Mexico, D.F., Editorial Diógenes, 1969).

His stories have been translated into Russian by Pavel Brusco and into English by J. M. Cohen.

He has collaborated with the main cultural publications of Cuba. His texts were translated into German, English, French, Italian, and Polish.

He has given lectures on cultural and historical topics and matters of communication at universities and cultural centers in Germany, Brazil, Cuba, Chile, Spain, the United States, France, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Mexico, Nicaragua, Poland, Uruguay and Venezuela.

He was awarded the Prize for Literary Criticism for the sixth time at the Dulce María Loynaz Cultural Center for the work Cine cubano, ese ojo que nos ve, published by Editorial Oriente in 2010[1].

Bibliography
Miel sobre hojuelas (stories, Ed. Erre, Havana, 1964)
Siempre la muerte, su paso breve (novel, First Honorable Mention of the Casa de las Américas Prize, Havana, 1968, translations in France [Gallimard], Germany and Poland)
Che comandante (historical journalism, with a collective of authors, special issue of the magazine Cuba, Havana and Ed. Diógenes, Mexico D.F., 1968)
La fiesta de los tiburones (testimonial narrative, Editorial Ciencias Sociales. Havana. 1978; also: Alfaguara, Spain)
Contradanzas y latigazos (historical essay, National Prize for Literary Criticism, Editorial Letras Cubanas, Havana, 1983; second edition with epilogue by Manuel Moreno Fraginals)
Lezama Lima, el ingenuo culpable (essays, National Prize for Literary Criticism, Editorial Letras Cubanas, Havana, 1988)
Llorar es un placer (essay, National Prize for Literary Criticism, Ed. Letras Cubanas, Havana, 1989)
Cuba, una epopea meticcia (essays, Ed. Giunti, Florence, Italy, 1995)
El Bello Habano. Biografía íntima del tabaco (historical essay, prologue by Manuel Vázquez Montalbán, Ed. Ikusager, Vitoria, Spain, 1998; first Cuban edition in 2004)
Cuba, una asignatura pendiente (essays, Ed. Di´7, Palma de Mallorca, Spain, 1998)
La ventana discreta (essays, Ed. Ávila, Ciego de Ávila, 1998)
Échale salsita. Comida Tradicional Cubana (culinary recipe book, Editorial Casa de las Américas, Havana, 1999)
Al cielo sometidos (novel, Italo Calvino Prize (2000), and National Prize for Literary Criticism (2001), Ed. Tropea, Milan, and Unión, Havana, and Alianza Editorial, Madrid, 2001)
Cine cubano, ese ojo que nos ve (essays, Ed. Plaza Mayor, San Juan, Puerto Rico, 2002)
Envidia de Adriano (poems, prologue by Pablo Armando Fernández, Ed. Unión, Havana, 2003)
Cine cubano, ese ojo que nos ve Editorial Oriente. 2010
Espiral de interrogantes (essays, articles, lectures, Ed. Boloña and Cubaliteraria web portal, Havana)

Passive Bibliography

Martí, Agenor. "Miel sobre un pasado", in La Gaceta de Cuba. Havana, 3 (41): 22, Nov., 1964.

Awards and Distinctions

1968: Honorable Mention for the novel at the Casa de las Américas Competition for Siempre la muerte, su paso breve.
1983: National Prize for Literary Criticism for Contradanzas y latigazos
1988: National Prize for Literary Criticism for Llorar es un placer
1989: National Prize for Literary Criticism for Lezama Lima el ingenuo culpable
1993: Juan Rulfo Prize for Short Story
2000: Italo Calvino Prize for the novel
2001: National Prize for Literary Criticism for Al cielo sometidos
2003: National Literature Prize
2005: National Prize for Literary Criticism for El bello Habano
2007: National Prize for Cultural Journalism
2010: The Havana International Book Fair edition is dedicated to him
2010: National Prize for Literary Criticism for Cine cubano, ese ojo que nos ve
Distinction for National Culture