Eliseo Diego: revisiting his legacy

February 17, 2020

An approach to the work of the illustrious Cuban intellectual, who was honored at the 29th edition of the International Book Fair of Havana

Upon enjoying a writing that reveals infinite feelings, ideas flow in abundance, assessments and nostalgias scattered in words that emanate from the most heartfelt passion.

Eliseo Diego was born in Havana on July 2, 1920 and physically disappeared in Mexico on March 1, 1994. He founded the journal Orígenes together with José Lezama Lima and other intellectuals; in 1986 he received the National Literature Prize.

Little is known, or not as much as deserved, about the merit of his poetic work, his essays, translations and prose. During the 29th edition of the International Book Fair, he was honored at the Literary Forum of the Union of Writers and Artists of Cuba where experts, students from the Faculty of Arts and Letters, and reading audiences highlighted the intellectual and human dimension of the author of fundamental texts for deepening understanding of Cuban lyric poetry of the twentieth century.

The book En la Calzada de Jesús del Monte (1949) is the most significant and intense of his authorial production. Revealing in its high literary hierarchy, the collection provides a sensitive approach to Cuban identity. A certain baroque air springs from the beauty of the everyday world seen by a cultured, studious, intensely hardworking man.

Eloquent is the dedication that dates from 1948: "This is a text I dedicate to friendship, these are words spoken in the afternoon to some friends –so that we might better know the moving beauty of this world–. Its writing is nothing but a stratagem to deceive time, and so that the soft echo might last a little longer".

Revisiting the legacy of Eliseo Diego will provide approaches to a fruitful existence in the face of desolate inclemency. He accompanies, embraces, delivers the intensity of every day as exceptional moments. Perhaps that is why he writes: "My childhood passed along Jesús del Monte Boulevard, from the humid darkness that was the womb of my countryside to the great smoke-filled skull of hallucinations that is the city".

One must read him slowly, savoring each word, the intentionality of a poetic discourse rich in realities and dreams that spring from intimacy and closeness, nostalgia and silence.

Why not bring to the telephone, to the computer, to the tablet, the gift of one of his poems or the stories he created for children? Eliseo Diego was a man ahead of his time; he knew how to captivate the young with language free of pedagogical sentimentality.

Upon closing each of the pages that he dedicated to humankind, verses of permanence remain in memory, in the soul, for the present and the future. The longest, definitive homage will, without a doubt, be to read him with interest, with the desire to bring him close to our daily lives so that we might know ourselves better.