Mourning in Santiago de Cuba for the death of Marino Wilson Jay

August 26, 2021

The death on August 19th in Santiago de Cuba of intellectual Marino Wilson Jay, at 75 years of age and a victim of COVID-19, mourns this city and constitutes a significant loss for local and national culture.

Through Facebook, the Fundación Caguayo reported that less than 24 hours after his admission to a health institution in the territory came the news of the sudden death, caused by a pandemic that affects millions of people in the world.

Thus, Cuban literature and art are in mourning, another hard blow, one more loss, another unexpected farewell; his teachings and work will always remain with those who have the commitment to preserve and conserve it for posterity.

On the same social network, Rubén Darío Salazar, National Theater Prize 2020, noted that Marino Wilson Jay will sound among the names of the essential poets of the city along with those of Jesús Cos Cause and Efraín Nadereau, and it will be difficult for Santiago de Cuba to bid farewell to a bard with the colors of earth, sea and sky in his writings.

To journalist Reinaldo Cedeño, the renowned poet, advisor and essayist always seemed like an invincible being, and he affirmed that national culture loses an enlightened one, a memorable gentleman, a sorcerer of letters, a noble man.

From now on the lucid voice will be missing, his privileged memory, said writer Teresa Melo, while asking for the accompaniment of his poetry and that the light of the city always shine for him.

A native of Guantanamo, he arrived in Santiago de Cuba in the 1970s to pursue higher education at the Universidad de Oriente, where he graduated as a bachelor in Hispanic Language and Literature, and here he developed prolific cultural work.

Passionate about letters, he founded the literary workshop José María Heredia, was part of the provincial committee of the Unión de Escritores y Artistas de Cuba (Uneac), won several contests inside and outside the island, and until the moment of his death became one of the most significant voices of poetry in the southeastern locality.

Marked by the historical events of the archipelago –without this implying a historicist approach– his work is situated in two well-defined poetic generations: that of the 70s, for chronological reasons, and that of the 80s, where his last books are inserted.

Wilson Jay's poetic production appears concentrated, for the most part, in four texts: Así comenzó la alborada (1983), Yo doy testimonio (1987), Granada la bella (1987) and El libro terrible (1994), although some scattered poems can be found in periodical publications and anthologies.

During his fruitful life he collaborated in national and foreign journals such as Santiago, Casa de las Américas, La Gaceta de Cuba, Del Caribe, La Palma, Heredia, El Caserón, Bohemia, Letras Cubanas, Caimán Barbudo, Revolución y Cultura, La porte des poetes (Francia), Caracola (Venezuela), Diario de la Nación (Colonia), Puerto de Sol (EEUU) and Suplemento Cultural (México), among others.

On the occasion of the 60th anniversary of Uneac, an organization to which he belonged until his last days, Marino Wilson Jay stands as an example for the new generations of writers of his native and adopted cities.