Roberto Fernández Retamar

Important Cuban poet, essayist and cultural promoter. He was president of the Casa de las Américas and Director of the Cuban Academy of Language until the day of his death.

For his work he obtained the National Prize for Literature of Cuba in 1989 among many other decorations and awards at the national and international level. He is a member of the State Council of Cuba.
He was born in the neighborhood of la Víbora in Havana City. Between 1945 and 1946 he was a student in a course on plastic arts.

He graduated as a bachelor in 1947 from Instituto Edison, where he studied primary school and all of high school. After finishing his studies, he worked as an assistant professor at the same institution. That same year he began collaborating with poems in youth magazines.

In 1948 he abandons the Architecture degree and enters Philosophy and Letters. He participates in activities in the formation of the Cultural Society Nuestro Tiempo (1951) and obtains the National Prize for Poetry with his book Patrias (1949-1951). In 1954 he received his doctorate in Philosophy and Letters. He obtained by competitive examination a chair of Linguistics at the University of Havana.

He obtained by competitive examination a chair of linguistics at the University of Havana. He studied at La Sorbona (1955) –where he was a student of linguistics– and at the University of London (1956). He also visited Spain, Italy, Greece, Holland and Belgium. Upon his return to Havana he joined the clandestine group Resistencia. Invited by Yale University to teach a course on Spanish American literature, he took classes with René Welleck and gave lectures at Columbia University. He collaborated in Les Lettres Nouvelles, Esprit, Europe, Les Lettres Francaises, Orígenes, El Nacional, Triad, Nuestro Tiempo, Lunes de revolución, Bohemia, Cuba, Cuba Socialista, Poesía de América, Siempre!, and was co-editor of the magazine Unión.

After his return to Cuba in 1958, he ceases his activities as a professor due to the closure of the University and collaborates, under the pseudonym of David, in the newspaper Resistencia. After the triumph of the Revolution he returns to the University.

He gave lectures on Spanish American Literature at the universities of Prague and Bratislava. He was director of Nueva Revista Cubana. He has served as a professor at the School of Arts and Letters of the University of Havana and president of the Casa de las Américas.

In 1960 he assumes the position of cultural advisor in Paris. He collaborated in Les Lettres Nouvelles, Esprit, Europe, Les Lettres Françaises. As a delegate of Cuba he attended the XI General Conference of UNESCO. At the first National Congress of Writers and Artists of Cuba (1961) he was elected coordinating secretary of UNEAC.

Between 1961 and 1964 he was co-editor of the Unión Magazine. He has participated in congresses and meetings of intellectuals held abroad. In 1965 he gave lectures on Spanish American literature at the universities of Prague and Bratislava. He traveled to the DRV in 1970 to collaborate in the filming of the Cuban film Viet-Nam, Third World, Third World War, directed by Julio García Espinosa.

He was director of Nueva Revista Cubana. He has collaborated in Orígenes, the supplement of El Nacional (Mexico), Triad (USA), Nuestro Tiempo, Lunes de Revolución, Bohemia, Cuba, Cuba Socialista, Poesía de América, Siempre!, El Corno Emplumado, La Gaceta del Fondo de Cultura Económica (Mexico), Marcha (Uruguay), Asonante (Puerto Rico), Amaru (Peru), Revista Hispánica Moderna (New York), Partisans (France), Literatura Internacional and La Gaceta Literaria (Soviet Union), Ínsula (Spain). He is author of Órbita de Rubén Martínez Villena (1964), of the selection and prologue of the anthology Cinco escritores de la revolución rusa (1968) and of the poetry anthology Para un mundo amasado por los trabajadores (1973), among many other works of this kind. In collaboration with Fayad Jamís he compiled the anthology Poesía joven de Cuba (1959).

From 1962 and until 1965, respectively, he is professor at the School of Letters and Art of the University of Havana and director of the Magazine Casa de las Américas. His texts have been translated into various languages.

He is elected on June 10, 2008 as the new Director of the Cuban Academy of Language, of which he has been a member since September 17, 1995 occupying the chair letter K. He is currently president of the Casa de las Américas and Member of the State Council of the Republic of Cuba.

In the year 2019 UNESCO grants the International José Martí Prize to Roberto Fernández Retamar who is the first Cuban to receive this honor.

Awards and Distinctions

National Prize for Poetry for his book Patrias, in 1951.
Latin American Poetry Prize Rubén Darío, for Juana y otros poemas personales, 1980.
International Prize for Poetry Nikola Vaptsarov of Bulgaria.
International Prize for Poetry Pérez Bonalde, of Venezuela, 1994.
Order "Félix Varela", 1981.
National Prize for Literature, 1989.
Medal "Alejo Carpentier", 1994.
Order "Juan Marinello", 1996.
Prize of Literary Criticism for Aquí in 1996.
Official Medal of Arts and Letters, awarded in France, in 1998.
Juchimán de Plata Prize, in 2004.
National Prize for Cultural Research, 2008
ALBA Prize for Letters, 2008
Order "José Martí", 2009
International Prize José Martí, 2019

Poetry

Elegía como un himno, Havana, 1950
Patrias. 1949-1951, Havana, 1952
Alabanzas, conversaciones. 1951-1955, Mexico, 1955
Vuelta de la antigua esperanza, Havana, 1959
En su lugar, la poesía, Havana, 1959
Con las mismas manos. 1949-1962, Havana, 1962
Historia antigua, Havana, 1964
Poesía reunida. 1948-1965, Havana, 1966
Buena suerte viviendo, Mexico, 1967
Que veremos arder, Havana, 1970. Published simultaneously in Barcelona in Ed. El Bardo with the title Algo semejante a los monstruos antediluvianos
A quien pueda interesar (Poesía 1958-1970), Mexico
Cuaderno paralelo, Havana, 1973
Circunstancia de poesía, Buenos Aires, 1974
Revolución nuestra, amor nuestro, Havana, 1976
Palabra de mi pueblo. Poesía 1949-1979, Havana, 1980
Circunstancia y Juana, Mexico, 1980 (consists of Circunstancia de poesía and Juana y otros poemas personales)
Juana y otros poemas personales, Managua, 1981
Poeta en Havana, Barcelona, 1982
Hacia la nueva, Havana, 1989
Hemos construido una alegría olvidada. Poesías escogidas (1949-1988), Madrid, 1989
Mi hija mayor va a Buenos Aires, Havana, 1993
Algo semejante a los monstruos antediluvianos. Poesías escogidas 1949-1988, Havana, 1994
Las cosas del corazón, Havana, 1994
Una salva de porvenir, Matanzas, Cuba, 1995
Aquí, Caracas, 1995
Esta especie de poema. Antolojía poética, Puerto Rico, 1999
Versos, Havana, 1999.

Active Bibliography
Elegía como un himno (A Rubén Martínez Villena), 1950.
Patrias (1949-1951), 1952.
La poesía contemporánea en Cuba (1927-1953), 1954.
Alabanzas, conversaciones (1951-1955) (poems), 1955.
Idea de la estilística, 1958.
Vuelta de la antigua esperanza (poems), 1959.
En su lugar, la poesía (poems), 1961.
Con las mismas manos. 1949-1962 (poetry), 1962.
Papelería (essays), 1962.
Historia antigua, 1964.
Poesía reunida. 1948-1965, 1966.
Ensayo de otro mundo, 1968.
Modernismo, noventa y ocho, subdesarrollo, 1970.
Que veremos arder (poems), 1970.
Calibán, apuntes sobre la cultura en nuestra América, 1971.
El son de vuelo popular (essay), 1972.
Cuaderno paralelo (poems), 1973.

In 1998 he is appointed as President of the Advisory Council of the Office of the Martiano Program.

His texts have been translated into various languages. He has been recognized with: the Latin American Prize for Poetry Rubén Darío, International Prize for Poetry Nikola Vaptsarov of Bulgaria, the International Prize for Poetry Pérez Bonalde, of Argentina and with the Official Medal of Arts and Letters, awarded in France, in 1998 they grant him in Argentina the Order of May.

He is appointed on June 10, 2008 as the new Director of the Cuban Academy of Language. That same year he was deserving of the ALBA Prize for Letters, for his sustained dedication to the enrichment of the cultural heritage of Latin America and the Caribbean.