Por Ana Mengotti |
Miami (EFE).- The Cuban writer exiled in France Zoé Valdés, who is preparing a novel about José Martí with which she will close a trilogy focused on different stages of the History of Cuba, affirms in an interview with EFE that exile is not what that radicalizes, but “the discovery of the truth”.
Valdés is in Miami for a retrospective exhibition dedicated to the Cuban painter Ramón Unzueta (1962-2012), who died in exile in Spain and was a great friend of his since childhood.
The exhibition, entitled “From Island to Island” (From island to island) and open since last weekend at the American Museum of the Cuban Diaspora, shows the universality of a “solitary, cultured and serene painter, very focused on his art and good Cuban taste, in eternal Cuba” in the words of Valdés.
All the exhibited work, acrylics, watercolors and pastels, was made in the 20 years that Unzueta spent in Tenerife (Canary Islands), since she left Cuba with nothing, her sister, Eneida Unzueta, who accompanied Valdés on the interview in the museum
Zoé Valdés, works for freedom
The writer, who left Cuba for good in 1995, although she had previously spent five years in Spain in the 1980s, says that art is her greatest interest, but Cuba is always in her mind and heart, even though she has not returned and has no desire to to do so, and also works to end “a tyranny” that is the same age: 64.
The author of “La nada cotidiana” belongs to the Movimiento Republicano Libertario Martiano, with militants inside the island whose names she cannot say, and from the outside she is focused on exposing the need to develop new strategies to fight for the freedom of Cuba and to learn in this, for example, from the Iranians.
“The work that must be done now is to encourage ordinary Cubans that they have power, which is the power of the desire for freedom, the yearning for freedom,” he stresses.
Valdés acknowledges that she takes with “reserves” the opinions she hears in Miami that the end of “tyranny” is near, but, as a good Cuban, she says, she lets herself be carried away by “illusion.”
“We Cubans live a lot of illusion and the illusion for the moment is that (the change) will be soon,” he says.
Although the Cubans from within the island will have the leading role when the time comes, “the Cubans from exile will also be present in one way or another. It is inevitable because that is our country, ”he underlines.
exile and history
When asked if she believes that exile has radicalized her, she answers: “More than exile, the discovery of the truth, of the truth of the exiles, of many compatriots who have been left on the road due to age and who were fighters ”, he emphasizes.
Also, learning from the “true” history of Cuba, the one that “they have erased and want to continue erasing,” he adds.
“In Cuba there is no education, in Cuba there is indoctrination. When you go out you are in diapers ”, she underlines.
The writer summarizes the issue by saying that she has been radicalized “for obvious reasons” and that “she has no problem with radicalization” because she is focused on the freedom of Cuba, “which is fundamental.”
Zoé Valdes, who has just presented the English version of her short novel “El amor griego” in Miami, is finishing the last novel in a trilogy that began with “Fidel”, which was about the commander of the revolution Fidel Castro, and He continued with “El pájaro lindo de la madrugada”, about Fulgencio Batista, who was constitutional president and ended up as a dictator.
“The third is a very particular moment in the life of José Martí, who is the greatest of all Cubans,” says Valdés, who has tried to portray “three important periods of thought and action in Cuba.”
Of the three historical characters in the trilogy, he undoubtedly stays with Martí, “the soul of Cuba” and a “little” with Batista, because “he was the great rebuilder of the country”, with many “defects”, but also “hits”. , says.
From Fidel -he says- he does not rescue anything.