Juan Carlos Flores (1962–2016) was a Cuban poet. Flores published a number of books in Cuba including his award-winning ''Los Pájaros Escritos''. Flores was born in
Havana
Havana (; Spanish: ''La Habana'' ) is the capital and largest city of Cuba. The heart of the La Habana Province, Havana is the country's main port and commercial center. in 1962 and committed suicide in September 2016.
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Biography
Juan Carlos Flores was born in Havana
Havana (; Spanish: ''La Habana'' ) is the capital and largest city of Cuba. The heart of the La Habana Province, Havana is the country's main port and commercial center. , Cuba, in 1962.Alamar ''For the film see Alamar (film)''
Alamar, also known as Alamar-Playa, is a district in east part of the city of La Habana in Cuba, part of the ''municipio'' of Habana del Este. This district is primarily prefabrication construction of Soviet-style ...
, a community built just to the east of Havana and considered one of the largest housing projects in the world. He originally lived in Zone 4, one of the first sections to be built, and later moved to Zone 6. In 2012, he travelled outside of Cuba for the first time to speak to Brown University
Brown University is a private research university in Providence, Rhode Island. Brown is the seventh-oldest institution of higher education in the United States, founded in 1764 as the College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providenc ...
students about his book, ''El contragolpe''. Flores lived as an outsider in Cuba, holding no university degree or traditional job.experimental poetry
Experimental literature is a genre that is, according to Warren Motte in his essa"Experimental Writing, Experimental Reading" "difficult to define with any sort of precision." He says the "writing is often invoked in an "offhand manner" and the ...
and performance activities that emerged in recent decades in his community.
Poetry
Juan Carlos Flores has been an influential figure in Cuban culture
The culture of Cuba is a complex mixture of different, often contradicting, factors and influences. The Cuban people and their customs are based on European, African and Amerindian influences.
Music
The music of Cuba, including the instruments a ...
through his written works and experimental performances. His poetry is characterized by his fluid uses of repetition and often artistic minimalism
In visual arts, music and other media, minimalism is an art movement that began in post–World War II in Western art, most strongly with American visual arts in the 1960s and early 1970s. Prominent artists associated with minimalism include Don ...
.
Awards
In 1990, Flores won the David Prize for his first book of poems, ''Los pájaros escritos''.
In 2002, ''Distintos Modos de Cavar un Túnel'', the first book in the trilogy, won the Julián del Casals prize awarded by Cuba’s national union of artists and writers
Other projects
In 1998, Flores founded Zona Franca, an alternative writer’s collective based in Alamar, with other artists. Later, they merged with a visual arts group called OMNI. Together they founded a progressive, collaborative project named OMNI-Zona Franca.
In 2009, Flores released a DVD with 35 poems and a soundtrack by Tony Carreras. It was directed by Garage 19 and produced by Miriam Real Arcia
Published works
''Los pájaros escritos'' (1994)
''Distintos modos de cavar un túnel'' (2003)
''Un hombre de la clase muerta'' (1986-2006)
''El contragolpe (y otros poemas horizontales)'' (2009)
''El trapiche (unpublished)''
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Flores, Juan Carlos
1962 births
2016 suicides
20th-century Cuban poets
Cuban male poets
Suicides in Cuba
21st-century Cuban poets
2016 deaths