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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 October 2022
To think of Nicolás Guillén is to be immediately reminded of two observations. The first by José Martí, who, quite aptly argued:
La poesía es durable cuando es obra de todos. … Para sacudir todos los corazones con las vibraciones del propio corazón es preciso recibir de la humanidad los gérmenes e inspiraciones. … Sin estas condiciones, el poeta es planta tropical en clima frío, no puede florecer.
The unedited Spanish version of this article appeared in Escritura (Caracas), año 4, núm. 8 (julio/diciembre 1979).
Translated with funds provided by the Josiah Charles Trent Memorial Foundation, Inc. Translated by William and Eleanor Ilgen.
1. José Martí, Obras completas (La Habana: Editorial Lex, 1953), Tomo I, pp. 873–74.
2. Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth (New York: Grove Press, 1963), p. 187.
3. Obras completas, Tomo I, p. 874.
4. The reader who is interested in these correspondences could also compare the final part of “Racismo y cubanidad” (1937) with the poem “Little Rock,” included in La paloma de vuelo popular; the description of New York City—cited later—in “De Nueva York a Moscú, pasando por París” (1949) with the sonnet, from La rueda dentada, “A las ruinas de Nueva York”; or, from the same collection, the poem “Poetas” with the sentences that conclude his report “Diez años de la UNEAC” (1971). The examples multiply. For the detailed study of one of these examples, see: Hans-Otto Dill, “De la exposición periodística a la representación artística (estudio crítico sobre Nicolás Guillén,” Revista de la Biblioteca Nacional José Martí, año 63, vol. 14, no. 2 (mayo-agosto 1972), pp. 65–80.
5. Guillén gives this name to a series of articles that appeared during 1964.
6. Obras completas, Tomo II, p. 1619.
7. “¿Periódicos negros de cubanos o periódicos cubanos de negros?” Diario de la Marina, 4 de agosto de 1929. As is the case with various others to which we will have occasion to refer, this article is part of a manuscript collection which Guillén himself and the critic and poet Angel Augier kindly put at our disposal. As happens with some of those that are part of this collection, it does not appear in what is, to date, the most complete source of the prose writings of Guillén. That is to say, the three volumes of Prosa de Prisa, 1929–1972 (La Habana: Editorial Arte y Literatura, 1975) which Augier prepared. Unless otherwise noted, all of the references to Guillén's writings will be to this work. In the interest of greater brevity and convenience, those references, henceforth included in the text, will be limited to an indication of the pertinent volume and pages. In the case of those manuscript articles that do not appear in this selection, we will indicate, in a footnote, as in this case, the date and place of its publication or presentation. In addition, we want to express here our gratitude to their author and to Angel Augier for all the resources they have made available to us for this study of the work of Guillén.
8. Obra poetica, 1920–1958 (La Habana: Instituto Cubano del Libro, 1972), 1:114.
9. “El alma de Moncada,” Hoy, 1 de julio de 1941.
10. “Odio africano,” Hoy, 25 de enero de 1942.
11. “Cuba, Hitler y los Negros,” Hoy, 8 de enero de 1942.
12. Ibid.
13. His defense of the Soviet Union, as an embattled socialist country, is constant and unchanging during the period of the struggle, as the reader of “Un músico en el frente” (1941) will be able to verify. He does not, on the contrary, fail to point out the contradictions of the United States' participation in a war for democracy and against Hitlerian antisemitism. “Contra Hitler, pero también contra Jim Crow,” he says in “Yanquis y Mambises” (1941).
14. “Tres muertes españolas,” lecture given before the Asociación Nacional de Escritores y Artistas de Perú, Lima, 3 August 1946, p. 1.
15. Ibid., p. 5.
16. Ibid., p. 6.
17. Untitled manuscript of a lecture to which, for the sake of convenience and because of its contents, we have given the title of “Poesía y revolución.”
18. “Poesía y revolución.”
19. “Tres muertes españolas,” p. 7.
20. “Poesía y revolución.”
21. “Tres muertes españolas,” p. 5.
22. Ibid.
23. Antonio Gramsci, Cultura y literatura (Barcelona: Ediciones Peninsula, 1972), p. 132.
24. For detailed analysis of the dynamics and projections of that process see: José Antonio Portuondo, “Itinerario estético de la revolución cubana,” Unión, No. 3, año 14, septiembre de 1975.
25. “Motores y mecánica,” unpublished manuscript.
26. Ibid.
27. “Al primer tapón,” Hoy, 1 de febrero de 1961.
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