The First Issue of La Gaceta de Cuba
The first issue of the year of the La Gaceta de Cuba magazine has been launched at the Sala Villena of the UNEAC
By Rubén Ricardo Infante
The first issue of the year in which La Gaceta de Cuba celebrates its 55th anniversary has been launched last Thursday by Historian Armando Fernández Soriano at the Sala Villena of the National Association of Writers and Painters (UNEAC) Thus, each presentation is a kind of ritual attended by collaborators, readers, intellectuals … Thus, everyone takes home the new issue with the security that they can find in its pages part of the stories we need to go on.
Because, although the magazine is not exclusively literature, poetry, narrative … the conformation of each issue resembles the chapters of a serialized novel. Because the Cuban literary, critical, investigative discourse is present in each issue.
This issue, which introduce the beginning of a section of self-homage, reproduces the text by Jaime Sarusky, published in the first issue (No. 1, April 15, 1962)
The magazine opens its pages to a jovial interview with the winner of the National Prize of Literature Maggie Mateo; followed by a dossier dedicated to revealing the interconnections between identity and the environment. This segment has been presented in a way that joins different appreciations on this phenomenon.
There is also a tale from the La mirada oblicua book by Félix Sánchez (winner of the Foundation of the City of Matanzas Award, 2016) and poems that belong to the De diapositivas book by Laura Ruiz.
In addition, the vision of three writers on the legacy of Fidel Castro as a writer, is also present. Thus, the criteria by Caridad Atencio, Omar Valiño and Ricardo Luis Hernández Otero, deal with this topic.
This issue also dedicates pages to the work by José Manuel Fors (winner of the National Prize of Visual Arts) with Fors, bajo la sombra de quinientos millones de imágenes (Fors, under the shadow of five hundred million images) by Grethel Morell.
In addition, there are other important texts in this issue: an essay on the discursive tradition that is present in the National Anthem, by Pedro de Jesús; the suggestive approach to the fact of writing by Sonia Rivera-Valdés; with the integration of the list of Cuban films produced from television, a breakdown by Juan Antonio García Borrero; The presentation by Remigio Ricardo of Un ensayo poco conocido (A Little Known Essay) by Baquero to the Antonio Machado y lo barroco book by the author of Palabras escritas en la arena por un inocente (Words Written in the Sand by an Innocent.)
And, the saddest page of each issue: the Obituary, where it realizes the growing losses of figures of the Cuban culture.
And two comments on the Critical section: one dedicated to La marca (The Mark) tattoo project, and the other to celebrate the reissues of the work by José Soler Puig. Regarding visual arts, this issue includes a review to the Historia irracional de un conjunto de medida nula collective exhibition, and in the case of books, there are some approaches to the books: Rieles. Teatro en torno a Camagüey (Ácana Eitorial, 2014) by Omar Valiño; Anatomía de una isla. Jóvenes ensayistas cubanos (Anatomy of an island. Young Cuban essayists) (Eds. La Luz, 2015) compiled by researcher Reynaldo Lastre; (In) Mutations of the Solitary (Ed Sanlope, 2015) by Miguel Mariano Piñero and on sobre Damas, esfinges y mambisas: Mujeres en la fotografía cubana 1840-1902 (Ladies, sphinxes and mambisas: Women in the Cuban photography 1840-1902 (Ed. Bologna, 2016) by Grethel Morell.
This content, gathered in the initial issue of 2017, predicts for La gaceta de Cuba, a year full of enthusiasm and rigor that holds this Fiftieth magazine of the Cuban culture.
Translated by ESTI