Many followers of the renowned Cuban writer “were in for a disappointment” when faced by the absence of the reprinting of several of his books that had been announced as part of the programme of presentations of the 26th Havana International Book Fair.

Many of the readers who follow Leonardo Padura expected to find in the recently concluded 2017 Havana International Book Fair a good (and almost only) opportunity to purchase some of the Cuban author’s best-liked works, but most of them had to again leave empty handed.

The National Ballet of Cuba’s first dancer, who recently passed away in Madrid, interpreted as no one else the role of the Bride in Antonio Gades’ Blood Wedding, among other many dance feats.

When evoking Marta García the first images that come to my mind date back to the mid-1970s. She, who had just reached the level of first dancer of the National Ballet of Cuba, was dancing in the old Principal Theatre of Camagüey the role of Swanilda in a production of Coppelia which the Camagüey troupe, directed by JoaquínBanegas, had just premiered. At the time I was beginning to approach the world of ballet and I didn’t have too many elements to judge what I was seeing on stage, but what I saw in that function had a powerful effect on me. Marta irradiated energy, self-confidence, without losing the histrionic grace that the character required.

The Cuban writer returns to Cartagena de Indias, in Colombia, for a festival that promotes not just literature, but also cinema, visual arts, music, journalism, geopolitics and the environment.

Leonardo Padura was one of the writers invited to the 20th edition of the Hay Festival held this year in Cartagena de Indias, Colombia, considered one of the most important cultural events of the language in the Latin American sphere.

Two Cuban awardwinners in 2017 in Poetry and Studies on the Black Presence in Contemporary America and the Caribbean.

Every year in January hundreds of Latin American writers answer Cuba’s Casa de las Américas’ summons with the hope of being awarded in the perhaps most important Spanish language literary contest.