Rogelio Martínez Furé, One of the Most Prolific Cuban Artists and Intellectuals, Passes Away

October 11, 2022

On October 10, 2022, in Havana at the age of 85, the Africanist and ethnologist Rogelio Martínez Furé, one of the most prolific Cuban artists and intellectuals, passed away.

His extensive and varied work made him worthy of important recognitions, including the National Prize for Cultural Research (2001), the National Prize for Dance (2002), and the National Prize for Literature (2015).

An encyclopedic man has just died. An insatiable hunger for the universe inhabited him, and during his lifetime he managed to acquire knowledge that is not given to many men to achieve. His extraordinary talent was offered to research, literature, the spirit, music, and the arts. He founded the National Folkloric Ensemble, created dictionaries (Pequeño Tarikh), rescued memorable texts, and brought to paper the voice of African oral traditions, the beloved continent that he so fiercely defended.

Rogelio Martínez Furé has died at the age of 85, and he has left a trail of wisdom to which we must always return when seeking the essential springs of culture.

The eminent Africanist, folklorist, composer, writer, translator, Doctor Honoris Causa of the Superior Institute of Art and National Prize for Literature 2015 is the author of more than twenty titles, pamphlets and publications, as well as musical compositions.

On one occasion he confessed to having realized "the almost absolute ignorance that existed about that multiple Africa that at the same time is one, and I wondered how it was possible that, being that continent one of the fundamental components of Cuban identity and of all America, knowledge about it was so poor." And he set out to share "with my people this that I am acquiring so that they feel proud," and from then on he wrote about its presence in Cuba.

"I have always tried to be a bridge, and never a border. And I study Africa to understand myself and to better understand ourselves," he said then.

Passionate about the collective self, he created a person, of the I of the Spaniard and the Nu, of the creole, which means we, the yonu, and he placed it in his books. He defined himself as a man of the spoken word and a very grateful son of the Cuban people.

We have lost a protagonist of musical performances and makas, a poet, a singer in love with Cuba, a wise conductor of projects, but his exquisite work is enough for Furé to continue showing us paths and inspiring us with his inexhaustible effervescence.

The also dancer, singer, pedagogue and researcher was in charge of founding the National Folkloric Ensemble, an institution from which he contributed to the preservation and dissemination of musical and dance traditions of African origin.

He also received the title of Doctor Honoris Causa from the University of the Arts of Havana, the Alejo Carpentier Medal, and the International Fernando Ortiz Prize (2004).

Martínez Furé was born in the western Cuban province of Matanzas on August 28, 1937, and from 1951 to 1956 he completed his high school diploma in Liberal Arts at the Secondary Education Institute in that city.

In 1956 he enrolled at the University of Havana where he studied the specialties of Civil Law, Administrative Law, and Diplomatic Law.

Since its creation, he worked at the Institute of Ethnology and Folklore of the Academy of Sciences of Cuba, where he specialized in the study and dissemination of African cultural influences in America.

The result of his research includes the books African Anonymous Poetry (1968), Imaginary Dialogues (1975), National Folkloric Ensemble of Cuba (1975), Mambisa-Palenque (1976), National Dance of Cuba. XX Anniversary (1959-1979), among many others.

Also notable are his studies collected in the Diwán Africano collection, on poets of French, Portuguese, and African expression, which received the support of the United Nations Organization for Education, Science and Culture, with which he collaborated as an advisor.

The prestigious Cuban intellectual was also an author of musical pieces and a vocal interpreter of Cuban, Brazilian, and Italian folklore.