The Cuban intellectual Georgina Herrera (Havana, 1936) has received the Mackandal Award from the Teatro Cimarron Company, directed by poet and playwright Alberto Curbelo .
Previously this award had been granted to intellectuals like Nancy Morejon, Rogelio Martinez Fure and Gerardo Fullera Leon. During the recent XVI BarrioCuento event, organized by that theater company , it was decided to honor on this occasion a woman who has been considered one of the most important voices in contemporary Cuban poetry .
GH, published in 1962 by Editorial El Puente, opened the list of books coming out of the Herrera’s pen. Then came Gentes y cosas, Granos de sol y luna, Grande es el tiempo, Gustadas sensaciones, and Golpeando la memoria. The latter is her autobiographical text written along the historian Daysi Rubiera, maximum exponent of Cuban women’s biographical literature.
All Georgina Herrera books have been published by Ediciones Union and curiosity she always keeps the letter G in the beginning of the title.
Despite being well known as a poet, Herrera’s literature also includes scripts for radio and theater. All of them as a whole have been concentrated flatly on the experiences, hopes and concerns of the author about African women who were brought by force to America and here enslaved and the descendants of those, who are vital part of the history of nation.
The treatment of these subjects has included her in a doble “artivism” against racial discrimination and gender equality.
In particular, her poetry has been translated into several languages, including anthologies, female and African descent, and studied in Spanish literature professorships at universities in England, USA and Canada.
Similarly, her life and work have been captured in the documentary Cimarroneando with GH, by the American university professor Juana María Cordones-Cook, recently released in Havana, at the tribute to her made during Avellaneda Universe Encounter.
The XVI BarrioCuento will be held April 2-6 in the ALBA Cultural House, and during the event they will grant the Caliban prize to intellectual Fernando Martínez Heredia and the Mackandal to researchers Jesús Guanche and Tomás Fernández Robaina and the poet Alex Pausides, among others.
The Biennial will be dedicated to rural storytelling, myths and cosmogonies of the field, and African roots in Cuban agricultural practices and rural traditions.
