Casa de las Américas is an organization that was founded by the

Cuba Cuba, officially the Republic of Cuba, is an island country, comprising the island of Cuba (largest island), Isla de la Juventud, and List of islands of Cuba, 4,195 islands, islets and cays surrounding the main island. It is located where the ...

n Government in April 1959, four months after the

Cuban Revolution The Cuban Revolution () was the military and political movement that overthrew the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista, who had ruled Cuba from 1952 to 1959. The revolution began after the 1952 Cuban coup d'état, in which Batista overthrew ...

, for the purpose of developing and extending the socio-cultural relations with the countries of

Latin America Latin America is the cultural region of the Americas where Romance languages are predominantly spoken, primarily Spanish language, Spanish and Portuguese language, Portuguese. Latin America is defined according to cultural identity, not geogr ...

, the

Caribbean The Caribbean ( , ; ; ; ) is a region in the middle of the Americas centered around the Caribbean Sea in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, mostly overlapping with the West Indies. Bordered by North America to the north, Central America ...

and the rest of the world. Originally a publishing house and information center, it has developed into the best-known and most prestigious cultural institution in Cuba. The organization awards the

Casa de las Américas Prize The Casa de las Américas Prize (''Premio Literario Casa de las Américas'') is a literary award given by the Cuban Casa de las Américas. Established in 1959, it is one of Latin America’s oldest and most prestigious literary prizes. The award ...

, in several literary categories, and its official journal, ''Casa de las Américas'', has been published since 1961.

History

The organization was founded by Haydée Santamaría, a member of the

26th of July Movement The 26 July Movement (; M-26-7) was a Cuban vanguard revolutionary organization and later a political party led by Fidel Castro. The movement's name commemorates the failed 1953 attack on the Moncada Barracks in Santiago de Cuba, part of an at ...

and one of the few women directly involved in the revolutionary brigades. Under her leadership, it became over the next two decades a physical and cultural refuge for artists and writers who had been persecuted in their homelands for their advocacy of social justice and opposition to military dictatorship. The organization awards the

, one of the oldest and most prestigious prizes in Latin American literature. It also researches, supports, and publishes the work of writers, sculptors, musicians, and other artists and students of literature and the arts. Its official organ is the journal ''Casa de las Américas'', published since 1961. The journal began as a literary magazine but has since become a general intellectual review with an equal focus on history and international politics. It also publishes ''Boletín'', a journal specializing in Latin American music, ''Criterios'', devoted to theory and criticism, and ''Anales de Caribe'', a scholarly journal for Caribbean specialists in all disciplines. Following Santamaría's death in 1980, Casa de las Américas was led by the painter Mariano Rodriguez (1912–1990). From 1986 until 2019, its President was poet and essayist Roberto Fernández Retamar (1930–2019). Abel Prieto Jiménez (b. 1950) assumed the presidency after Retamar's death.

Notes

References

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External links

Casa de las Américas official site
{{DEFAULTSORT:Casa de las Americas Aftermath of the Cuban Revolution Cultural organizations based in Cuba Foreign relations of Cuba International Simón Bolívar Prize recipients Latin American studies Organizations established in 1959