In the final chapter of \u00a8El estante vacio. Literatura y pol\u00edtica en Cuba\u00a8, Rafael Rojas lists a series of basic books that have not been published in Cuba. However, unpublished doesn\u2019t mean unread. Rojas needs to be informed \u2013though he is probably aware about it\u2013 that books are also sold off the record, laser printed, made in Cuba binds, rather than bookshelves they demand files to collect them.<\/p>\n
Nevertheless, what\u2019s the meaning of these underground publications? (Let\u2019s keep in mind that the novel Herejes, by Leonardo Padura, was published off the record in Cuba long before than in Tusquets Editores, as if some domestic employee for the National Award had had access to the files in his PC.)<\/p>\n
What\u2019s the meaning of Richi\u2019s digital library, which comprises more than 65 000 books? (You ask him for a book in the list and he emails it to you. For free. There is no better supplier. He meets his deadlines. He doesn\u2019t spam. And his Cuban catalogue is something else. Where does he get \u201cHigh Quality Print\u201d PDF versions of El libro perdido de los origenistas (by Antonio Jos\u00e9 Ponte), El hombre que amaba a los perros (by Leonardo Padura), Chiquita (by Antonio Orlando Rodr\u00edguez), Animal tropical (by Pedro Juan Guti\u00e9rrez), etc.?)<\/p>\n
What\u2019s in the \u201cBooks\u201d section in the so-called \u201cWeekly package\u201d, where happy bunches by the Rolling Stone and Art Experience: New York City manage to rise over the fallen leaves?<\/p>\n
Just one thing: melt away. Deep melt away. Or a steroid in the library.Pure local warming.Writings out in the open that imploded due to scarcity, illegality, anarchy or ideology; alternative shadows that light fires and lurk in the dark, in that empty shelf of contemporary Cuban literature.<\/p>\n
In order to give you an idea of the whims of that little off the record publishing world in Cuba (which is larger on the inside than on the outside), let\u2019s make a critical review of a small sample of books by a publishing house in the municipality of Playa in Havana:<\/p>\n
ONE: Te di la vida entera and La ficci\u00f3n Fidel, byZo\u00e9 Vald\u00e9s [Price: 200 Cuban pesos (CUP) \/ 8 Cuban convertible pesos (CUC)and 300 CUP \/ 12 CUC, respectively]. Many Cuban follow Zo\u00e9 Vald\u00e9s, as if she hadn\u2019t got any older. Though it is true she had aprecocious youth, but one book only: La nada cotidiana. Zo\u00e9 was very damaged by the success of that novel. Later on, in some way, she didn\u2019t write anything new, she devoted herself exclusively to repeating her old clich\u00e9s and answering immoderate demands of her followers. However, she is not only reduced to literature, it also includes politics. I mean: the supposed vindication of the novel as political genre, as if the writer was some sort of Tania Bruguera (Remix) in the Cuban literature. It is easy \u2013perhaps too easy\u2013 to break that analogy. The first thing that sets Zo\u00e9 Vald\u00e9s apart from Tania Bruguerais gametes (\u201ca mature haploid male or female germ cell which is able to unite with another of the opposite sex in sexual reproduction to form a zygote\u201d)Tania\u2019s marked Cuban art with fire. Let\u2019s consider, first of all, that the Catedra de de Arte de Conducta also has illegitimate children. Yet, in Cuban literature, who are Zo\u00e9 Vald\u00e9s epigones? Noone that I\u2019m aware of. Zo\u00e9 is sterile, put necessary. A novel such as Te di la vida entera is reading material for people that wouldn\u2019t read anything at all if it didn\u2019t exist.<\/p>\n
TWO: Morir en Cuba. Suicidio y sociedad, by Louis A. P\u00e9rez Jr. [Price: 300 CUP \/ 12 CUC]. It is a collective memory that links suicide and nation. The absence of cubens is suicide from the black whole of homeland historiography seems to have made a too large room in the subconscious mind of Cuban historians, anthropologists, essayists, ethnologists and writers. In 1906, Fernando Ortiz quoted a thought by criminologist Enrico Morselli: \u201cwe must welcome the increase of suicide rates, which implies an improvement of civilization\u201d. Right away I recall Miguel Collazo, Ra\u00fal Hern\u00e1ndez Nov\u00e1s, Reinaldo Arenas and Calvert Casey. Mostly, I recall \u00c1ngel Escobar and that poem, \u201cEl escogido\u201d, in which his worst nightmare was \u201cnot to be able to escape from knowledge\u201d.<\/p>\n
THREE: Vidas para leerlas, by Guillermo Cabrera Infante [Price: 200 CUP \/ 8 CUC]. This is a volume were biographers revealed Nicol\u00e1s Guill\u00e9n singing to Stalin: \u201c\u00a1Stalin, que te proteja Chang\u00f3 y te cuide Yemay\u00e1!\u201d (Stalin, may Chango protect you and Yemaya watch over for you!); the uterine phosphorescence of a Virgilio Pi\u00f1era that climbed the empire State as King Kong: \u201cliterature is about gays, and if we are going to talk about gays: there is me\u201d; Nov\u00e1s Calvo final via crucix: insanity, disability and senile idiocy: \u201cAt a unusual point I found myself talking to Lino directly [\u2026]. It didn\u2019t seem to know what Cuba was\u201d; US poet Allen Ginsberg writing love letters \u2013letters that did got lost\u2013 to Commander Ernesto Guevara: \u201cI\u2019d really like to sleep with him\u201d, he stated. It also portrays Calvert Casey committing suicide and, among other interesting elements, the behavior of punk duet Lezama-Pi\u00f1era behind the scenes.<\/p>\n
FOUR: Fidel y Ra\u00fal: Mis hermanos. La historia secreta. (Memorias de Juanita Castro), by Mar\u00eda Antonieta Collins [Price: 300 CUP \/ 12 CUC]. I think there is no need to point out this is a paparazzi book. Underclothes. It is gothic and familiar and a Victorian thriller written as if the History of Cuba was but a chapter of Gossip Girl. XOXO, Gossip Book.<\/p>\n
The truth is that while these underground publications are in a boom, the more reluctant we become regarding any generalization on how unknown our exiled literature is. In 2009, it could be said \u2013as Rojas noted\u2013 that \u201cin Cuba, the books and authors sold are those edited by the State\u201d. During the early 2013, we had evolved into some sort of furtive and decentralizededitorial self-employment. Are off the record books sold all over the country? Yes, fortunately. Because time has gone by since that mythical: \u201cthe Revolution doesn\u2019t say believe, it says read\u201d.<\/p>\n
A detail perhaps more digressive: during the long nights I spent transcribing the inventory of tittles published by anonymous publishing-houses, I had two dreams with a note of nightmares. Half asleep in front of the printed list \u2013half somnambulistic, half zombie\u2013, the first one was paranoid: there, I found out I was in fact Cuban artist Alexis Leyva, Kcho, but I wasn\u2019t throwing bricks in the shape of boats downtown at the Old Square but rather forbidden, non-publishable books; and that it was a big fake, a plot to watch closely those who would pick up novels by Carlos Victoria, essays by Antonio Jos\u00e9 Ponte and Rafael Rojas, poetry by Lorenzo Garc\u00eda Vega and other exponents of insane bibliography; and all that happened while an almost human voice whispered: \u201cit\u2019s Kcho\u2026, it\u2019s Kacho\u2026, who else could it be?\u201d.<\/p>\n
The second dream was even worse: all of the sudden K officials arrived to perform an exorcism. There were weird and ancient things and rituals. For instance, a K official hit three times \u2013with a silver crucifix\u2013 the last book by Ivan de la Nuez in order to get demons out of it. \u201cThe communist manifesto\u201d, he read and right away yelled: \u201cevil dog, to hell\u201d. I recall having thought of a movie by David Fincher, with Morgan Freeman and Brad Pitt, about a serial killer that after reading some \u201csatanic\u201d books, used the bodies of his victims to preach. I recall having thought, exactly, of a good scene in which veteran William Somerset (Freeman) tells young and ambitious detective Davis Mills (Pitt), that the FBI had been connected to the libraries for years and was keeping records.<\/p>\n
\u2013 Are they punishing with fines? \u2013 asked a Brad Pitt for whom Santo Tomas de Aquino was Santo Tomas de Agua (water); summing up, an ignorant.<\/p>\n
\u2013 They are monitoring Reading habits \u2013 answered Freeman\u2013. There are certain books \u201cmarked\u201d. Books on nuclear weapons\u2026 Mein Kampf. If you take out a marked book, your records go directly to the FBI.<\/p>\n
\u2014Wait, wait, wait\u2026 \u2014Pitt questioned\u2014 Is that legal?<\/p>\n
\u2014Legal, ilegal. Those terms have no relevance.<\/p>\n
Obviously, Somerset was referring to the monitoring when supposedly the final goal justifies the means used to achieve it. But in terms of literature, is there actually such thing as illegality?<\/p>\n
Right there awoke with my own scream.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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