French Literature Reviews - 2026
Amina Damerdji, Poésie et dissidence à Cuba : engagement et désengagement des écrivains, de La Havane à Madrid (1966-2002)
Francophone and Oral Literatures
The entanglement of literature and politics across 40 years of Cuban history, traced through the evolution of a group of 15 writers from their beginnings in the journal El caimán barbudo to dissidence, exile, or the choice to remain on the island during the 1990s.
In 1966, seven years after the triumph of the Cuban Revolution, a new poetry group emerged around the journal El caimán barbudo, affiliated with the Communist Party of Cuba. Their writing was turbulent and original, combining support for the regime with playful detachment. The changing landscape of freedom of expression in Cuba, along with the national and international reception of their works, would drive some into exile and dissidence, while leading others to forge a unique path on the island. In 1996, a final attempt to reunite the group through the pages of the Madrid-based journal Encuentro de la cultura cubana reshaped their connections once again. Bridging literary studies and the social sciences, this book chronicles the untold history of this group during the second half of the 20th century and analyzes how literature reinvents itself amidst political upheavals.
This study situates itself at the intersection of literary history and political sociology, examining how creative expression navigates authoritarian contexts and ideological shifts. By following a cohort that emerged during the foundational years of the Cuban Revolution, the work illuminates the complex negotiations between intellectual autonomy and state alignment. The trajectory from the cultural optimism of the 1960s to the severe economic crisis and ideological hardening of the Special Period in the 1990s provides a vivid backdrop for understanding broader questions of artistic freedom, censorship, and the responsibilities of the writer in times of crisis.
Researchers in Romance languages, Latin American history, and cultural studies will find this volume a valuable resource for its meticulous mapping of transnational literary networks. It offers insightful reading for anyone interested in the mechanics of exile, the dynamics of diasporic intellectual communities spanning Havana and Madrid, and the ways inwhich poetry serves as both a witness to history and a refuge for independent thought. The book ultimately questions how aesthetic forms survive the fragmentation of political ideals and the physical dispersal of a generation.