Daína Chaviano wins the award for best book in Spanish in Florida

March 12, 2020

The Cuban writer based in Miami Daína Chaviano, winner of the award for best book in Spanish at the Florida Books Awards for her novel 'The Children of the Hurricane Goddess', is missing awards for unpublished literary works in Spanish in the United States, according to what she told Efe.

In telephone statements after learning that she obtained the Gold Medal for Best Book in Spanish Language in the 14th edition of the literary awards instituted by Florida State University, Chaviano declared herself 'very happy' about this recognition.

Asked by Efe, the writer said that there are few award calls for books published in Spanish that exist in the United States, because 99% are for works in the English language, but in the field of unpublished books the situation is a desert, because there are practically none, which reduces possibilities for authors in the language of Cervantes.

The 14th edition of the Florida Books Awards had some 175 works submitted for the 11 categories, of which only one is dedicated to books in Spanish in all genres.

The Cuban writer believed that, given the weight of the Spanish language in Florida, there should also be different categories for books in Spanish.

Chaviano researched for more than ten years to write 'The Children of the Hurricane Goddess', a 'historical thriller' that reconstructs the universe of the Taíno, the main indigenous culture of the Caribbean, and establishes a link between the 16th century and the hypothetical future of a democratic Cuba.

The novel, published by Grijalbo-Penguin Random House, tells how a specialist in ancient documents tries to discover who is behind several murders that occurred in Miami and Havana, following the discovery of an indigenous tomb.

In 2006, Chaviano also obtained the Gold Medal for books in Spanish during the first call of the Florida Books Awards with her novel 'The Island of Infinite Loves', translated into 27 languages.

In her statements to Efe, the writer indicated that her books are not sold in Cuba for other reasons including the 'problem' of the 'political vision' that she has about what happens there, but she knows through social networks, in which she is 'very active', that her novels enter the island and are read.

Chaviano's works have been translated into some thirty languages and have received various international awards such as the Anna Seghers Prize (Academy of Arts of Berlin, Germany, 1990), the Azorín Prize for the Novel (Spain, 1998) and the National Malinalli Prize for the Promotion of the Arts, Human Rights and Cultural Diversity (Mexico, 2014), among others.

One of her most recognized works is the novelistic quartet 'Hidden Havana', composed of 'The Man, the Woman and the Hunger', 'House of Games', 'Caged Cat' and 'The Island of Infinite Loves'.

The Silver Medal for Best Book in Spanish Language at the Florida Book Awards went to Lizette Espinosa, for her poetry collection "Smoke". The third place in this category remained vacant.

The award winners will receive their medals on April 2 at a gala banquet to be held in Tallahassee, capital of the state of Florida.

In an interview with Efe last October, Chaviano said that she wanted to glimpse in 'The Children of the Hurricane Goddess' a 'utopian' future for Cuba with 'democratic elections', because she was tired of the 'completely dark future' of the dystopias so in vogue in current literature and cinema.

'We are too saturated with dystopias, filled with the worst of what we can imagine as a society and as human beings' and 'if we fill ourselves with that burden of negativity we will not be able to create the future that many of us want', said the author in an interview with Efe in Miami, the city where she has resided since 1991.