An unforgettable experience will fill your senses when you visit a tobacco factory; you will immediately perceive the intoxicating odor of the aromatic leaves being rolled by the workers sitting in their work posts; a short period of time will suffice to turn them into fabulous cigars, highly appreciated for their quality worldwide.
As part of the atmosphere are the cigar factory readers, whose task it is to bring knowledge and culture to the cigar rollers while the latter, fully concentrated, carry out their creative work.
A cigar factory reader should possess several qualities, among them correct pronunciation, clear voice and the necessary culture to transmit emotion to what he reads, as well as to answer the questions or doubts that his listeners might have.
The sizes are the measures or forms of the cigars, which became Cuban brands with names like Romeo y Julieta, alluding the Shakespeare original, and Count of Montecristo, in reference to Alexander Dumas senior’s texts. Both brands attained world fame, and their names recall the relationship between cigars and reading as part of their production process.
When the reader ends his work, as a token of appreciation for the pleasure received from him, the factory workers hit their work tables with their cutters, but if they are unsatisfied with what they listened to, they throw to the floor the curved knives used to cut and roll the leaves.
The reading practice, unique in Cuba since the 19th century, allows the workers to be informed without having to distract their attention from work, and employ their minds freely.
During the first years they chose Cervantes, Victor Hugo, Balzac and Zola as favorite authors, next to Cuban authors like Miguel de Carrión and Carlos Loveira; after 1959 the responsibility of choosing the authors went to a reading commission, which extended the reading to newspapers that updated the workers on events in Cuba and abroad, plus books or other texts that increased their cultural and political knowledge.
Since the 19th century, the well-known cigar factory readers have been inseparable from the cigar rollers. They are a source of culture as Cuban as the palm trees.
Authors
Teresa Valenzuela,
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