Roberto Fernández Retamar (9 June 1930 – 20 July 2019,

Havana Havana (; ) is the capital and largest city of Cuba. The heart of La Habana Province, Havana is the country's main port and commercial center.Casa de las Américas Casa de las Américas is an organization that was founded by the Cuban Government in April 1959, four months after the Cuban Revolution, for the purpose of developing and extending the socio-cultural relations with the countries of Latin America, ...

. In his role as President of the organization, Fernández also served on the Council of State of Cuba. An early close confidant of

Che Guevara Ernesto "Che" Guevara (14th May 1928 – 9 October 1967) was an Argentines, Argentine Communist revolution, Marxist revolutionary, physician, author, Guerrilla warfare, guerrilla leader, diplomat, and Military theory, military theorist. A majo ...

and

Fidel Castro Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz (13 August 1926 – 25 November 2016) was a Cuban politician and revolutionary who was the leader of Cuba from 1959 to 2008, serving as the prime minister of Cuba from 1959 to 1976 and President of Cuba, president ...

, he was a central figure in Cuba from the 1959

Revolution In political science, a revolution (, 'a turn around') is a rapid, fundamental transformation of a society's class, state, ethnic or religious structures. According to sociologist Jack Goldstone, all revolutions contain "a common set of elements ...

until his death in 2019. Fernández also wrote over a dozen major collections of verse and founded the Casa de las Americas cultural magazine. Professor Joao Cesar Castro de Rocha, at the

University of Manchester The University of Manchester is a public university, public research university in Manchester, England. The main campus is south of Manchester city centre, Manchester City Centre on Wilmslow Road, Oxford Road. The University of Manchester is c ...

has described Retamar as "one of the most distinguished Latin American intellectuals of the twentieth century." In 1989, he was awarded the National Prize for Literature, Cuba's national literary award and most important award of its type.

On Caliban

Responding to the arielismo of

José Enrique Rodó José Enrique Camilo Rodó Piñeyro (15 July 1871 – 1 May 1917) was a Uruguayan essayist. He cultivated an epistolary relationship with important Hispanic thinkers of that time, Leopoldo Alas (Clarín) in Spain, José de la Riva-Agüero in ...

, who used the

Shakespeare William Shakespeare ( 23 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's natio ...

an character

Caliban Caliban ( ), the subhuman son of the sea witch Sycorax, is an important character in William Shakespeare's play ''The Tempest''. His character is one of the few Shakespearean figures to take on a life of its own "outside" Shakespeare's own w ...

as a metaphor for Latin American civilisation, Retamar in 1971 influentially set up instead Caliban as a symbol of the Cuban people, stating that: "Our symbol is not

Ariel Ariel may refer to: Film and television *Ariel Award, a Mexican Academy of Film award * ''Ariel'' (film), a 1988 Finnish film by Aki Kaurismäki *, a Russian film directed by Yevgeni Kotov * ''ARIEL Visual'' and ''ARIEL Deluxe'', a 1989 and 1991 ...

, as Rodó thought, but Caliban….I know no other metaphor more expressive of our cultural situation, of our reality".Quoted in A Vaughan, ‘’Shakespeare’s Caliban’’ (Cambridge 1991) p. 156

Works

;Poetry :Elegía como un himno, Havana, 1950 :Patrias. 1949-1951, Havana, 1952 :Alabanzas, conversaciones. 1951-1955, Mexico, 1955 :Vuelta de la antigua esperanza, Havana, 1959 :En su lugar, la poesía, Havana, 1959 :Con las mismas manos. 1949-1962, Havana, 1962 :Historia antigua, Havana, 1964 :Poesía reunida. 1948-1965, Havana, 1966 :Buena suerte viviendo, Mexico, 1967 :Que veremos arder, havana, 1970. Published in Spain with the title Algo semejante a los monstruos antediluvianos :A quien pueda interesar (Poesía 1958-1970), Mexico :Cuaderno paralelo, Havana, 1973 :Circunstancia de poesía, Buenos Aires, 1974 :Revolución nuestra, amor nuestro, Havana, 1976 :Palabra de mi pueblo. Poesía 1949-1979, Havana, 1980 :Circunstancia y Juana, México, 1980 (consta de Circunstancia de poesía y Juana y otros poemas personales) :Juana y otros poemas personales, Managua, 1981 :Poeta en La Habana, Barcelona, 1982 :Hacia la nueva, Havana, 1989 :Hemos construido una alegría olvidada. Poesías escogidas (1949-1988), Madrid, 1989 :Mi hija mayor va a Buenos Aires, Havana, 1993 :Algo semejante a los monstruos antediluvianos. Poesías escogidas 1949-1988, Havana, 1994 :Las cosas del corazón, Havana, 1994 :Una salva de porvenir, Matanzas, Cuba, 1995 :Aquí, Caracas, 1995 :Esta especie de poema. Antología poética, Puerto Rico, 1999 :Versos, Havana, 1999. :Felices los normales. Poesías escogidas 1994-1999, Mexico, 2002. :De una pluma de faisán. Poetas en mis poemas, Córdoba (Spain), 2004. :Antología personal, Mexico, 2004. :Nuestro fuego, Lima, 2006. :Cinco poemas griegos, Havana, 2006. :Lo que va dictando el fuego, Caracas, 2008. :Conversa. Antoloxía 1951-1996, Vigo, 2009. :Nosotros los sobrevivientes. Antología poética, Santiago de Chile, 2010. :Vuelta de la antigua esperanza, Havana, 2010. :Una salva de porvenir. Nueva antología personal, Buenos Aires, 2012. :Circonstances de la poésie, París, 2014. :Historia antigua, Havana, 2015. ;Essay :La poesía contemporánea en Cuba. 1927-1953, Havana, 1954 :Idea de la estilística, Havana, 1983 :Papelería, Universidad Central de Las Villas, 1962 :Ensayo de otro mundo, Havana, 1967 :Introducción a Cuba. Historia, Havana, 1968 :Calibán, Mexico, 1971 :El son de vuelo popular, Havana, 1972 :Lectura de Martí, Mexico, 1972 :Para una teoría de la literatura hispanoamericana, Havana, 1975 :Acerca de España. Contra la Leyenda Negra, Medellín, 1977 :Introducción a José Martí, Havana, 1978 :Algunos problemas teóricos de la literatura hispanoamericana, Cuenca, 1981 :Para el perfil definitivo del hombre (prólogo de Abel Prieto), Havana, 1981 :Entrevisto, Havana, 1982 :José Martí: semblanza biográfica y cronología mínima (con Ibrahím Hidalgo Paz), Havana, 1982 :Naturalidad y modernidad en la literatura martiana, Montevideo, 1986 :Algunos usos de civilización y barbarie, Buenos Aires, 1989 :Ante el Quinto Centenario, 1992 :José Martí. La encarnación de un pueblo, Buenos Aires, 1993 :Cuando un poeta muere, Matanzas, Cuba, 1994 :Nuestra América: cien años, y otros acercamientos a Martí, Havana, 1995 :Cuba defendida, Havana, 1996 :Recuerdo a, Havana, 1998 :La poesía, reino autónomo, Havana, 2000

References

Bibliography

* ‘’Caliban and Other Essays’’ (Minneapolis 1989) * ''Todo caliban'' San Juan, PR: Ediciones Callejon, 2002.

External links

Falleció el reconocido intelectual Roberto Fernández RetamarFallece en La Habana el poeta y ensayista Roberto Fernández RetamarLa Peña: Artists and Creators''World Literature Today'' Summer/Autumn 20021978 interview in ''Diacritics''1995 interview in ''Critical Inquiry''
{{DEFAULTSORT:Fernandez Retamar, Roberto 1930 births 2019 deaths Latin Americanists Government ministers of Cuba 20th-century Cuban poets Cuban male poets Cuban male essayists 20th-century Cuban essayists 20th-century Cuban male writers

On Caliban

Works

See also

References

Bibliography

External links