Miguel Barnet, National Prize for Cultural Heritage 2023

December 27, 2023

Barnet was one of the promoters of the international program the Slave Route, sponsored by Unesco, which has one of its most prominent expressions in the open museum, by initiative of the poet, in the Castle of San Severino, in Matanzas.

The proclamation this Tuesday of Miguel Barnet as National Prize for Cultural Heritage 2023 recognized the dedication of a life devoted to the rescue, investigation, preservation and promotion of cardinal aspects in the formation of Cuban identity.

With the publication of Biography of a Runaway Slave (1966) he not only gave voice to Esteban Montejo, but to those of more than a million enslaved Africans transported to the island under inhuman conditions, and to the contribution of the children of the continent to independence struggles and to a resistant and distinctive culture.

When the president of the National Council for Cultural Heritage, Sonia Virgen Pérez gave the news to the poet and ethnologist, to his memory came those who founded Cuban thought, from José Agustín Caballero and Félix Varela to José Martí and Fernando Ortiz. He evoked Argeliers León, one of his mentors, and the sounds, prayers and songs of the practitioners of popular religions and rumberos that he heard as a child in a tenement in El Vedado resonated in his ears. From the Fernando Ortiz Foundation, founded and presided over by him, he continues to contribute to making the nation's heritage more alive each day.

Barnet was one of the promoters of the international program the Slave Route, sponsored by Unesco, which has one of its most prominent expressions in the open museum, by initiative of the poet, in the Castle of San Severino, in Matanzas.