Cuba stood at the crossroads between the Old and New Worlds ever since Columbus first landed on its shores. Throughout the centuries the island developed an extraordinarily rich and varied culture, reflected in its literature from the colonial period to the present.
Starting with the first world-class Cuban literary figure, Jos‚ Maria Heredia (1803-39), and on to Jose Marti (1853-95), Jose Lezama Lima (1912-74) and Alejo Carpentier (1904-1980), works by all the important Cuban authors can be found in the Library's collections. According to noted literary critic Ivan Schulman of the University of Illinois, the Library's collection of Cuban literature in all genres "is well balanced and representative of all periods of Cuban letters. ... Furthermore, over the years it has acquired a large number of significant first editions or works published in Havana in small numbers, which today are almost impossible to obtain."
A recent publication about an aspect of the Library's Cuban collections is A Survey of Cuban Revistas 1902-1958 (Library of Congress: 1993), an annotated bibliography by Roberto Esquenazi- Mayo of Georgetown University, which analyzes an array of periodicals reflecting Cuban cultural and literary trends. These revistas were the prime vehicles for documenting the cultural life of Cuba for half a century.
When people think of literature they think of printed texts. A nontraditional resource for the study of Luso-Hispanic and Caribbean literature is the Archive of Hispanic Literature on Tape, begun by the Hispanic Division in 1942. As Reinaldo Arenas said to Roberto Valero when they both recorded selections at the Library in 1980, "Preserving the voice or image of a writer adds a wholly new dimension to the appreciation of literature."
So far, 604 authors have been recorded, among them seven Nobel laureates: Gabriela Mistral, Octavio Paz, Pablo Neruda, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Mario Vargas Llosa, Jorge Amado and Jorge Luis Borges. In addition to literary authors, a few intellectuals have also recorded for the archive. Authors record at the Library of Congress or according to strict specifications in studios of U.S.embassies abroad, in university sound laboratories or at radio stations.
Nicolas Guillen became the first Cuban poet to record for the archive, in 1958, at the Radio Municipal in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Francisco Aguilera, the Hispanic Division's former specialist in Hispanic culture, called Guillen the foremost poet and "magician of Afro-Cuban folklore, rhythms and dialect with his son poems."
The son is a popular dance featuring poetry and using vernacular speech and music. Guillen's recorded poem "Songoro cosongo" and other selections from El Son Entero are perennial favorites with patrons who come to listen to the tapes.
The next Cuban writer to record was poet and critic Eugenio Florit in 1962. He wrote both poetry and Afro-Cuban verse.
Today, 28 Cuban and Cuban-American authors are represented in the archive; they were recorded in various and even far-flung places. This writer (who is the curator of the Archive of Hispanic Literature on Tape) recorded Cuban-American poet Eliana Rivero and novelist Hilda Perera in 1978 at the University of Ottawa while they were in Washington attending a conference on Latin American Women Writers.
The archive features writers living in Cuba as well as those who choose to live in exile. A resourceful scholar and Hispanic Division consultant, Margaret Crahan of Occidental College, scored a victory in 1978-79 when she recorded five writers in Havana -- Miguel Barnet, Edmundo Desnoes, Eliseo Diego, Roberto Fernandez Retamar and Nancy Morejon -- as well as musicologist Odilio Urfe.
Playwright Jose Triana was recorded by this writer at the University of Puerto Rico in Rio Piedras, while Afro-Cuban ethnologist and short story writer Lydia Cabrera was interviewed for the archive at the University of Miami (both in 1982). Novelist Julieta Campos, who lives in Mexico, read for the archive at the Benjamin Franklin Library in Mexico City in 1879, while Severo Sarduy recorded in Paris in 1984.
More than half of the authors represented in the archive were recorded at the Library of Congress. In addition to Eugenio Florit, some Cuban intellectuals who shared their insights into Cuban culture include literary historian Jose Arrom, Lourdes Casal, Armando Valladares, Carlos Franqui and Manuel Moreno Fraginals, all of whom were interviewed on tape by this writer.
Other novelists who have read for the archive at the Library include: Guillermo Cabrera Infante (also filmed on videotape), Antonio Benitez Rojo, and the poets Angel Cuadra, Belkis Cuza Male, Pablo Armando Fernandez, Heberto Padilla, Juana Rosa Pita and Roberto Valero.
The recordings in the archive are accompanied by notebooks containing transcriptions of interviews and texts of the selections read. Patrons may listen to the recordings in the Hispanic Division.
The Library also has numerous nonmusical as well as musical recordings from Cuba in the Recorded Sound Reading Room.
The Archive of Folk Culture houses material for the study of folklife and oral history of Cuba, dating back to the beginning of the 20th century. The American Folklife Center also maintains copies of many original recordings and a reference collection of books, periodicals and ephemera, as well as bibliographies and card files on the sound recordings housed elsewhere.
