Madrid habanece: Cuba y España en el punto de mira transatlántico. Ángel Esteban (ed.). Madrid: Iberoamericana, 2011. 276 pp. (Paper US$ 29.80)

Abstract

A particularly suggestive, expressive, and musical title graces this book on cultural relations between Cuba and Spain in the twentieth century and the first decade of the twenty-first. These relations, as in other cases of countries with close historical links, transcend the official level, involving fruitful personal ties between citizens and organizations in various political and economic positions.Thanks to the publishing house Iberoamericana-Vervuert, which constantly promotes bibliographic connections between Europe and Latin America, and the pen of Ángel Esteban (a professor of literature at the Universidad de Granada who specializes on Hispanic America with a particular focus on the Caribbean, and who has been energetically disseminating texts and authors from the two continents), we are able to immerse ourselves in a continual coming and going of people and ideas, a neverending cultural exchange in the form of music, cinema, literature, and history-intersections that Esteban suggests in the prologue are a fundamental element of the "naturally transatlantic" identity.The fourteen authors, some of whom also became the protagonists of their own tale, are, for the most part, men of Cuban origin who have divided their time between the island and exile. The oddness of their circumstances adds intrigue to the work, as well as a sense of the future and a spirit of dialogue in the construction of this "land that will be," in the happy expression of Luis Manuel García Méndez when dealing with the vicissitudes of the journal Encuentro de la cultura cubana (1996)(1997)(1998)(1999)(2000)(2001)(2002)(2003)(2004)(2005)(2006)(2007)(2008)(2009).The striking individuality of the work is due to its character as a space in which different times, forms, and topics coincide, a mixture of academia and popular culture which invites readers to enjoy common and affective elements (a bit forced at times) and whose pages see the convergence of García Lorca with Leonardo Padura, Nicolás Guillén with Diego el Cigala, and Jorge Perugorría with Luis Buñuel, all inhabitants of a virtual "Madrid" that reaches Miami and so many other "Habanified" cities.The work consists of four sections, focusing on historical, literary, cinematographic, and musical aspects, plus a final section offering personal and professional testimonials from representatives of Cuban culture on the difficulty of diffusing it and the complexity of institutional integration.