CWRU Faculty & Staff Authors

It is precisely the end of "the damned circumstance of Cuban exceptionalism" –which must come sooner rather than later– that puts the course of Cuban literature in incognito. The damn circumstance. Essays on Cuban culture questions, from different perspectives, the concepts of "Cubanness" and "exceptionality" whose intersection has marked, perhaps far beyond what is desired, the Cuban literary production of the last six decades, and does so taking as a reference the not too distant future of Cuban literature, when its character of exceptionality has ceased to be its main center of gravity.

This volume proposes a journey through the literature of the Cuban Revolution from its beginnings to the most recent years. Specifically, the chapters included here establish a provocative dialogue between literature and Cuban political and cultural powers. The nexus between these elements is essential to understand the complexity of such a peculiar cultural field, where the history of contemporary literature must be unavoidably read in light of historical and political determinants. Born out of a joint effort, this book brings together academics from different countries and institutions that address from a plurality of perspectives one of the essential topics of contemporary Latin American literature: the fascinating relationship between writing and power.

Written in Cyrillic: the Soviet Ideal in the Cuban Cultural Production after the Nineties.