Enrique Pérez Díaz is Deserving of the 2023 National Publishing Award

January 18, 2024

Enrique Pérez Díaz has just earned the 2023 National Publishing Award. Those who have been close to the Cuban cultural world know that this name, which sounds so warm to many, is also associated with other professions besides that of editor: narrator, journalist, literary critic, poet, researcher…. A brilliant track record that carries letters in his soul is enriched at every step, because for those who love creation, there are no unfruitful days.

But what he really takes most pride in is "being a great reader. All the other 'titles' come from the natural exercise of reading and writing, or editing with emotional intensity."

–Of all those professions, which one are you most?

–I am in each one of them according to my state of mind, the pressures of life and my inspiration in taking them on. In all of them my concepts, my training and my principles coexist.

–Let's talk about reading and writing in the early years…

–I wrote from school, apparently with some ease, because my classmates asked me to do their compositions. Later, journalism gave me confidence, tools and, daily work, not only as an editor and proofreader in newspapers, agencies, radio and magazines, forms your vice and the craft of living revising endlessly.

"If we're talking about purely fiction, in adolescence I wrote adventures, small works, and later stories for literary workshops. I don't find my calling until studying how various contemporary foreign authors expressed themselves, whom I took on to promote in Cuba. The first 'serious' book I wrote was La vieja foto. The most cherished, Mensajes, which had better luck. Unforgettable for public acceptance: ¿Se jubilan las hadas?, Inventarse un amigo, La dama del ocaso and the unnameable Escuelita de los horrores, which I myself never tire of rereading."

–How was the editor born?

–First from journalism, in 1980, as a founding student of Tribuna de La Habana, which covered news from municipal correspondents; working as a reporter-editor for five years at the ain; another two at Juventud Rebelde and later, as Head of Press at the Ministry of Culture, where I had to take on the Publications Department, the production of pamphlets (Caballo de coral, Barca de Papel, Para un príncipe enano, Ediciones Homenaje, Papeles de viaje), and that was the first exercise properly in a publishing house.

Later I spent a decade at Editorial Capitán San Luis, of which I am founding author and, when Olga Marta Pérez left, I took on children's collections, but we also made a collection of plaquettes from the Children's and Youth Literature section of the Uneac. Also at Ediciones Unión, while working as a promoter, I corrected manuscripts and contributed to the editorial management of the Dienteleche collection. That is something that fascinates me, managing good texts so they see the light, anywhere. Then would come the years of Gente Nueva… and of Selvi Ediciones, and so many other publishing houses.

–Gente Nueva is among the most beautiful projects you have directed. What does it mean to you?

–Gente Nueva and I grew up together. I knew it at ten years old, as a reader. Later I visited it as a somewhat overlooked author, and later, due to those paradoxes of life, I was given the task of directing it for more than five years. Its catalog is impressive in every way. Its editorial standard, one of the most demanding. It was a school of life that I will always be grateful for.

–Are you faithful to the child you were?

–Absolutely. It's hard for me to mature. Adult seriousness exhausts me because it denies my essence. For a reason, with more than 65 years, many still call me Enriquito.

–What can stress you out about the work as an editor?

–What stresses me most is not the length or complexity of the book, or the little time you sometimes have to edit it, but that an unpublished author doesn't understand when I want to help him, that I want to save his book at all costs, even against the editorial's negative opinion. It happened to me once and it was draining, but also instructive.

–In the Book Observatory that you direct today there is also publishing. What value does the craft have in conceiving this meticulous work with total quality?

–Yes, research must be made potable editorially, so that its results are understood. Also, we do social networks, newsletters and weekly guides, a Telegram channel with messages of public good about reading, several groups aimed at booksellers, teachers, promoters; we call competitions for readers, we advise, we give training. It's a small team of three journalists and two graduates in Sociocultural Studies, and we try to be proactive with reading, share what we discover and decipher how people could read more and better. It's obvious that editorial work is very much present. It goes without saying that I live as enamored with this work as I was at one time with the previous ones. While I was directing Gente Nueva someone once said to me: –And now what is going to become of your work? "Now this is my work," I told him. "Today's work is what always matters most."