The Word, Winter 2016-17 Newsletter by Harvard University Department of English

Department of English

Undergraduate Program Newsletter

Winter 2016 Volume 17 Issue 1

Inside this Issue 3 Welcome to English Class of 2019 7 Internships and Travel 9 Faculty Profile 10 A Conversation with Jorge Olivera Castillo 18 Fall Term Scrapbook

Benbulben Dear New English Concentrators,

Dear New English Concentrators, Great Choice! Everyone in the English Department – the faculty, the graduates who will be teaching your sections, and the administrative staff – welcome you to– the We’re all certain thatbe theteaching choice you’ve Great choice! Everyone in the English Department thedepartment. faculty, the graduates who will your made will repay manifold interest not only for the rest of your Harvard career, but for the rest of your life. sections, and the administrative staff – welcome you to the department. We’re all certain that the choice you’ve made will repay manifold interest not only for the rest of your Harvard career, but for the rest of Why your are life.we so sure? Three reasons: (1) we know you love reading and talking about books; you have immense pleasures ahead of you!; (2) statistical likelihood tells you that you’ll derive enormous satisfaction from this concentration at or near of concentrations of 50 or more concentrators for student Why are we (English so sure?is routinely Three reasons: (1) the wetop know you love reading and talking about books; you satisfaction); and (3) our own vocation is in part to transmit a deeply informed literary culture to you: we very have immense pleasures ahead of you!; (2) statistical likelihood tells you that you’ll derive enormous much look forward to having you in our(English classes!is routinely at or near the top of concentrations of 50 or satisfaction from this concentration more concentrators for student satisfaction); and (3) our own vocation is in part to transmit a deeply On behalf literary of the entire department, the warmest of welcomes to our informed culture to you: weI extend very much look forward to having youconcentration, in our classes! James Simpson On behalf of the entire department, I extend the warmest of welcomes to our concentration, Chair James Simpson Chair Obasi Shaw Natalie Antunez Joan Li Harnek Gulati Pascale de sa e Silva Anna Antongiorgi Trevor Dow Max Lesser Maia Silber Jocelyn Arndt Kathryn Gundersen Max Masuda-Farkas Liz Tenrai Ali Astin Binney Grace Li Connor Doyle Mark Steinbach Geoffrey Dan Milaschewski Rachel Harner Audrey Thorne Clara Baselga-Garriga Jessica Erion Elizabeth Manela Zara Sternberg Aislinn Brophy Averill Healey Nicolas O’Connor Madeleine Katie Berry Haskell Hannah Natanson Madi Stine Tolk Gianna Cacciatore Reuben Flender Howard Nancy O’Neil Sarah Lova Blavarg Kristina Neal Alison Gwen Toomey Thomas Allegra Caldera Hope Patterson MiriamGarber Huettner Jonathan Trang Leyla Brittan Amie Garcia Quentin Neroes Laila Virgo-Carter Taylor Carol Gabriel Hurwitz Shelly Preza Savannah Chloe Samantha Anna Mia VitaleWieser Caden Brooks Chase Catherine Neville Qin Kathy Gibbs Jung Madeleine Woods Phoebe Costello Ethan Pardue Liana Henderson-Semel Chloe Volkwein Monica de los Reyes Emma Rose Kantor Brad Riew Kay Kathleen Cronin Natalie Hodges Ali Park TomXia Waddick Stergios Dinopoulos Christopher Riley Robert Kim Sabrina Yates Milo Gant Player Kayla Hollingsworth Jarrod Wetzel-Brown Lena Davidson Felton Hannah Saal Clarissa Klein Emily Zhao Julia DeBenedictis Mitchell Johns Mitchell Polonsky Natalia Wojcik Jessi Glueck Tyrik LaCruise Nina Sapers Rebecca Dolan Mia Miranda Sadler Sarah Yeoh-Wang Silvia Golumbeanu AlexKarr Lee Michael Savarese Madeline Dorroh Christina Kerner Victoria Sanchez Faye Zhang Alexandra Grimm Halie LeSavage Eli Schleicher

Photo by Henry Vega Ortiz

2019

Welcome to English Class of

Why I Chose English? “In my freshmen year, I was taking two math/science courses when I realized I liked reading literature much more than solving computational problems. I even missed writing papers, which really surprised me (for I swear I hated them in high school). So I decided to shift my focus to English, where I could learn about fiction from different viewpoints, discuss topics that are fascinating, and be with professors who are just as enthusiastic as I am. In English I can enjoy college with subjects that I loved rather than enduring certain courses in order to get a specific degree. I like all my classes (which I almost thought not possible), and I am excited to take even more courses and to start my Junior tutorial. “ Benbulben

setting, but I believe that we are all trying to find ourselves here at college, and sometimes it can be uncomfortable when we do not find ourselves right away. The English Department understands that we are all learning, growing, and discovering exciting new things about this world and our lives within it, and they are right there alongside us for the journey. Their guidance is invaluable in our search, and I believe that the department is a welcome friend that we travel alongside while here at Harvard.

Why I Chose English

I decided to joint declare with — LailaEnglish Virgo-Carter Government because my Freshmen Tutorial professor, Professor Teskey, reminded me to take English courses. He reminded the classbecause that it’s “I chose the Harvard English Department all about being a balanced person. I have always they know how to make a student feel comfortable. English andword appreciated how I knowloved that is a strange to use in learning an academic to better understand and communicate with others, but this idea of taking classes that make me that balanced person I want to be made the decision for me. Plus I just like books:) —Kayla Hollingsworth, '19

The English Department houses much more than mere books. I believe that the English Department teaches its concentrators far more than how to simply enjoy and respond to books. We all love reading, but the department also teaches us that the words fostered within the pages of any story are not nearly as important as the fairytale that inspired it. The events and experiences of our lives are what make them valuable, and the department gets that. This is what drew me to the department, and, as cliche as it sounds, I believe the English Department is the first major part of the “fairytale” I am writing everyday that I live.” — Jarrod Wetzel-Brown

Why I Chose English The summer before my senior year of High School I took two feminist literature classes at Harvard’s summer school. One had approximately fifteen people, while I think the other six. I had planned to try two different, compelling classes and instead found myself stuck on literature. During that summer Harvard started to feel like home. It’s prestigious red bricks walls became familiar. In the six person class I did not like all of the novels we read, but I loved the conversation, and the way theDear classNew wasEnglish organized, and the way the professor Concentrators, thought and inspired me to think and question myself Great Choice! in the and her. In the otherEveryone class I did not English like theDepartment way the – the faculty, the graduates who will be teaching your sections, and the staff the – welcome you to the department. We’re all certain that the choice you’ve professor organized theadministrative class, but I loved readings made will repay manifold interest not only for the and the group conversations. My summer at Harvard rest of your Harvard career, but for the rest of your life. Secondary School taught me a lot of things: the Why are we so sure? Three reasons: (1) we know you love reading and talking about books; you have immense difference a professor to my of a class,tells you that you’ll derive enormous satisfaction from this pleasures aheadmakes of you!; (2) experience statistical likelihood the importance of learning from my peers, that I could concentration (English is routinely at or near the top of concentrations of 50 or more concentrators for student handlesatisfaction); college, thatand it would sovocation much better thanto transmit a deeply informed literary culture to you: we very (3) ourbe own is in part much look to having you in our classes! High School, thatforward I enjoyed small, conversation-based classes though I’d assumed I would prefer lecture, that behalf of thethat entire department, I extend the warmest of welcomes to our concentration, I lovedOn Harvard, and I loved literature too much to pushJames myself to major in anything else. So I am one Simpson of those people who came in day one Freshman year Chair knowing what I wanted to study. I took three English classes my first semester. I have been dreaming of a creative thesis since I found out it existed. And I am Obasi Shaw Natalie Antunez Joan Li Harnek Gulati ecstatic to officially concentrator. Maia Silber Jocelyn Arndtbe an EnglishKathryn Gundersen Max Masuda-Farkas Geoffrey Binney Rachel Harner —Audrey Thorne, '19 Aislinn Brophy Averill Healey Gianna Cacciatore Reuben Howard Allegra Caldera Miriam Huettner Taylor Carol Gabriel Hurwitz I declared English because there is no Caden Chase Kathy Jungforeseeable future Monica in which willReyes be able toEmma read anything from deIlos Rose Kantor Praise without Stergioscrying. Dinopoulos Robert Kim Lena Felton Clarissa Klein Jessi Glueck Tyrik LaCruise —Sarah Toomey, '19 Silvia Golumbeanu Alex Lee Alexandra Grimm Halie LeSavage

Photo by Henry Vega Ortiz

Dan Milaschewski Nicolas O’Connor Nancy O’Neil Hope Patterson Shelly Preza Catherine Qin Brad Riew Christopher Riley Hannah Saal Nina Sapers Michael Savarese Eli Schleicher

Mark Steinbach Zara Sternberg Madi Stine Gwen Thomas Laila Virgo-Carter Mia Vitale Chloe Volkwein Tom Waddick Jarrod Wetzel-Brown Natalia Wojcik Sarah Yeoh-Wang Faye Zhang

When I came to Harvard I was a humanities lover in a sea of pre-med and CS concentrators. I was made to feel bad about the fact that I wanted to pry open poems more than I did human bodies one day, and I spent all of freshman year trying to force myself to enjoy something other than English. I kept on waiting for my epiphany to come, to walk into a classroom and be knocked down by the overwhelming rush of urgency that this was it. This was my calling, this material was what I wanted to spendbut theI next four years studying. That did setting, believe that we are all trying to moment find ourselves not at come. Or soand I thought. At theit beginning of this year, here college, sometimes can be uncomfortable I took in the English when wemy do first not ever find class ourselves right away.department, The English for fun. I was welcomed into the room by thegrowing, same Department understands that we are all learning, breathless, all-consuming exuberance I had and discovering exciting newwave thingsofabout this world and felt in high school, and even middle school poetry our lives within it, and they are right there alongside us for This wasguidance my epiphany, but it had struck years theclasses. journey. Their is invaluable in our search, and ago without my knowing it, and I had been trying I believe that the department is a welcome friend thattowe repress it everwhile since. This repression came from the travel alongside here at Harvard. stigma surrounding humanities concentrations, but I have learned to let thathouses stigmamuch go. Wemore cannot be The English Department thanall mere physicians and engineers. Somebody must know how books. I believe that the English Department teachestoits communicatefar with people than concentrators more thanwith howsomething to simplyother enjoy and numbers, somebody must harness the powers of beauty respond to books. We all love reading, but the department andteaches sadness telling fostered as a means to change theof also usand thatstory the words within the pages world. Our government is founded on a piece of paper any story are not nearly as important as the fairytale that which it. wasThe putevents together people who were writers as inspired and by experiences of our lives are what much as they were politicians. Our religions arethat. grounded make them valuable, and the department gets This is by books that contain some of the earliest poetry to what drew me to the department, and, as cliche as it sounds, enter our world. The most dangerous revolutionaries, I believe the English Department is the first major part of most sought defiers of dictatorships, thethe “fairytale” I amafter writing everyday that I live.”wars, and injustice have been people who understood writing as the strongest mode for communicating. ThatWetzel-Brown is the path — Jarrod I have chosen. —Liana Henderson-Semel, '19

Summer Internships and Travel I spent the summer on a School for International Training program in Rwanda and Uganda. The program was eleven students, both American and international, but all of whom studied at university in the states. We lived in homestays, with families in Kigali for three weeks and then in Gulu for three weeks. We were in classes during the day from 9am5pm, attending lectures and seminars on peace and conflict studies. We visited NGOs, memorial sites, villages throughout the two countries, refugee camps and spent a lot of time talking with locals (in Rwanda, both victims and perpetrators of the genocide going through Gacaca; in Uganda, child soldiers). —Emmie Atwood, '18

Over the summer, I worked as a research assistant for Professor Steph Burt, proof-reading his nowpublished manuscript, The Poem is You, as well as copy-editing essays on poets such as Wallace Stevens. I also began writing a linked short-story collection about the Muslim-American experience prior to, during, and after 9/11. I continued working on an interactive sculptural installation called, “In Medias Res,” that probes literature’s role in formulating memory; and costume designed two shows for Harvard-Radcliffe Summer Theatre. Most exciting, I met with former English concentrator and alum Leslie Jamison '04 at a literary reading in New York City; and we chatted about her recent essay collection, The Empathy Exams (2014)! —Aisha Bhoori, '18

Photo by Aisha Bhoori

This summer I got the chance to work with one of my best friends as a proctor for the Harvard Summer School where we helped some really awesome high school students learn how to navigate their first Harvard experience. I also spent much of my time working with a professor on his upcoming monograph about Old English Poetry which was honestly just really fun. The rest of my time was split between a summer school course on Shakespeare and hanging out with all of my friends who were on campus. The whole summer was a truly wonderful and worthwhile experience for me. It was so great just to stay at Harvard for another 8 weeks! —Deirdre Carney, '18 I can’t throw my past summer on a resume. It happened just as the two before it had: hanging out with my friends, working out, playing ball, reading, writing, sleeping. I had planned two jobs for the summer, but I had to decline an offer from the former, an internship which called on me to teach English to Japanese students in different Japanese cities and towns, and the latter, an internship with the Harvard Law Review, got moved back to the start of the fall semester. I did some self-initiated research for my upcoming Senior Thesis, reading a bunch of materials to get my head wrapped around a single topic, and would hang out sometimes with my buds in cafes, all of us preparing for what we thought would be our fall classes. That’s about it. —Larry Dherkasov, '18 This summer, I was an IOP Director’s Intern at the Partnership for Public Service, a nonpartisan non‑profit in Washington D.C. that works to strengthen the civil service and inspire a new generation to serve. As a member of the Education and Outreach team, I focused on the second half of that mission, working to bring college students into the federal government. I developed resources for workshops with federal agencies, analyzed data and feedback from our webinars for college students and career counselors, and created centralized database for best practices in federal hiring. —Emma Kantor, '17 Photo courtesy of Emma Kantor

This summer, I interned at the New York City office of Playground Entertainment, a television and theatre development company that most recently produced Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. I read an average of a book a day while in the office and wrote book and script coverage. I also researched intellectual properties that the company was interested in. When not in the office, I spent many afternoons exploring the city and also worked on my creative thesis, a graphic novel titled Holy Roller. —Alex Lee, '17

This past summer, I worked as an intern at Zer0to5ive in Devon, PA. Zer0to5ive is a marketing, public relations, and branding firm near my hometown. During the internship, I collaborated with a team of interns on different projects and tasks. We designed marketing models for several start-up companies and presented Go-to-Market plans to CEOs. We updated also websites and social media sites for companies, and posed different brand strategies. I found the experience worthwhile and interesting, and I learned a lot about the marketing field and how my skills might fit. This summer, I also helped my grandfather publish

his first book. The book is called “Wizdom Memos” and is available for purchase on Amazon Books. My grandfather (“Wiz”) put together a collection all of his life advices, and I provided several illustrations. Please find above one of my illustrations for the book. —Peter Scott, '18 A change of plans last summer kept me at home on Long Island instead of studying abroad in Venice. So, since travel was out of the question, I did the next best thing: I entered into the realm of books and explored the worlds through which they led me. I spent countless happy hours with Pat Conroy, Frank McCourt, Trevanian, Norman Mailer, and other such authors who doubled as tour guides and escorted me on journeys I believed in and cared about. These personal, thought-provoking, emotional and evocative forays turned what at first seemed to be an unfortunate twist of fate into a very fortunate one, one that deepened my passion for the sweep and majesty of words and delivered me all across the globe, to Italy and beyond. Later, when I returned to campus in September, I returned excited to embark on new literary adventures that would—as they had over the summer—introduce me to new places, new experiences, new knowledge, and new understanding of where I fit into the world. —Nathan Siegelaub, '18

Image by Peter Scott

Faculty Profile Kelly Mee Rich Assistant Professor of English

How has/does literature inform and enrich your life? For me (and with a nod towards Kant), one of literature’s defining qualities is its capacity for critical play. We need to take the power of the imagination seriously if we are to persist at building a world we want to live in.

Prof. Rich’s Spring Courses English 90ll

Law and Literature

How did you come to study/teach English? At Amherst College, I double-majored in English and an interdisciplinary program called Law, Jurisprudence, and Social Thought, writing my senior thesis for the latter department. Through this I discovered I loved to write, and to develop ideas and observations into larger scholarly projects. I also was lucky to find a set of incredibly supportive mentors, with whom I continue to keep in touch. These relationships—with teachers, colleagues, and now, students—keep inspiring me in my work and surrounding life. What were some of your favorite authors/books growing up? Who are some now? I first encountered Virginia Woolf in a high school English class, where we read Mrs. Dalloway. I was completely transfixed, and remember being amazed (and indeed, glad) that someone could write like that. Her work continues to challenge and enchant me, being a major foundation for my first book project. Currently, I’ve been taken by the author Ruth Ozeki, particularly her My Year of Meats, a hilarious and heartbreaking novel that I taught in my Global Fictions course. I’m also convening a Freshman Reading Group on Ozeki’s recent book, A Tale for the Time Being, written after she became a Zen Buddhist priest. What do you hope your students walk away with from your courses? My greatest hope is that students walk away with a heightened awareness of their place in the world: the ties that bind us; the histories that haunt us; and above all, the ways we’re implicated in each others’ well-being, even (and especially) beyond our immediate scope of vision.

This course will explore the complex relationship between literature and law, focusing on how each represents and responds to violence and its aftermath. As we survey a series of twentieth-century juridical paradigms (trials, rights, reparations, and reconciliation), our goal will not be to judge the efficacy of literary and legal projects, but rather to study how they imagine issues of guilt, responsibility, testimony, commemoration, apology and forgiveness. Our readings will include novels, short stories, poetry, legal theory, documentaries, and key documents of international law: authors will most likely include Hannah Arendt, J.M. Coetzee, Jacques Derrida, Franz Kafka, Michael Ondaatje, Julie Otsuka, and M. NourbeSe Philip.

English 167bl

Post–1945 British Literature Why are we so taken by Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, Downton Abbey, James Bond, and “Keep Calm and Carry On,” and the ideas of Britain they project? This course will use this recent surge of Anglophilia as a springboard into our study of post-1945 British literature: a period whose social and political upheavals both radically redefine and conservatively re-entrench “British” as a category of analysis. Among the issues we’ll be considering are war and end of empire, new patterns of migration, emerging formations based on race, gender, and sexuality, and devolution and globalization. Our readings will range from highbrow to genre fiction; from declassified MI6 files to the latest episode of Doctor Who. Authors will most likely include Caryl Churchill, Helen Fielding, Graham Greene, Alan Hollinghurst, Kazuo Ishiguro, John Le Carré, Philip Larkin, David Mitchell, Samuel Selvon, Zadie Smith, Muriel Spark, Salman Rushdie, and Jeanette Winterson.

A Conversation with Jorge Olivera Castillo By Grazie Sophia Christie, '18 Harvard’s English Department is an unlikely place to hear a Cuban accent. I’m a junior at Harvard. After three years away from Miami, I thought I had long ago grown used to the absence of the sound— of the feel—of my childhood. In some ways I had. From the first day of freshman year, I spent every morning in the Barker Center. The halting Middle English of the students reading aloud in the café; the quiet coffee orders of graduate students; the tangential ache of overheard poetry— all of this became a sonic something-else to which I learned to belong. I waved instead of leaning in for a kiss when saying hello. I gestured less when I spoke. I expected minimal warmth from strangers. One October afternoon, I was sitting in the office of Henry Vega Ortiz, the Undergraduate Program Assistant of the English Department. He was telling me about Jorge Olivera Castillo, a Cuban writer and dissident visiting Harvard through the Scholars at Risk Program. Just as Henry, who knew I was CubanAmerican, asked me if I’d like to meet and interview Jorge, the door of the department swung open. It was Jorge. He was speaking to a woman who would soon be introduced to me as his wife, Nancy. I heard only a voice startlingly similar to my abuelo’s: the low, grinning gruff of Cuban Spanish. When I stood up to greet them, they kissed me hello; the cheeks they pressed to mine were the color of my mother’s. The moment itself felt Latin, too. The Borges-esque coincidence in timing. And later on, the magical realism of how in a few short months they would be sitting beside my father, singing at the piano. Jorge Olivera Castillo’s work as a Cuban dissident started in 1993. Leaving behind his work as a television program editor, he worked as press secretary for the Independent Federation of Democratic Cuban Workers, and later as director of the Habana Press agency from 1999-2003. He was arrested along with seventy four other human rights activists, journalists, and writers during the 2003 Cuban “Black Spring.”

Photo by Henry Vega Ortiz

His wife, Nancy, became one of the founders of the Damas en Blanco (Ladies in White) oppositional movement, along with relatives of other jailed dissidents. Sentenced to 18 years in prison, Jorge was released due to health concerns. It was in Guantanamo, where he was held in solitary confinement for over nine months, that he began his career as a poet and fiction writer. His collections of short stories and poems include Confesiones antes del Crepusculo, Huésped del Infierno, En cuerpo y alma, Cenizas Alumbradas, Antes que Amanezca y otros relatos, Sobrevivir en la boca del Lobo, Tatuajes en la Memoria, and Quemar las naves. Olivera also contributed to PEN International’s anthology Write Against Impunity; his poetry was published in translation in a special anniversary edition of Index on Censorship, ‘Beyond Bars: 50 Years of the Writers in Prison Committee’ in 2010. When Jorge returns to Cuba, which he is determined to do after his two years abroad, he faces imprisonment and the certainty that he will not be allowed to leave for the remainder of his life. A few weeks after I interviewed Jorge, Jorge and Nancy travelled to Miami to spend Christmas with one of their sons. Before I came home for winter break, they met my parents and my grandparents. They came to our Noche Buena, our traditional Cuban Christmas Eve Celebration. Our exile community was still dealing with the after-effects of Castro’s death in November; Jorge and Nancy, dining on lechón alongside my great-aunts and great-uncles, provided a kind of proximity to Cuba my relatives hadn’t experienced in decades. They shared stories about Nancy’s visits to Guantanamo and one of Jorge’s fellow prisoners, who willingly increased his prison sentence by inviting Nancy to stay with his mother when she did so. They described the violent street harassment they face as dissidents in Cuba, the increasingly poor state of medical care there, and institutionalized racism. I could sense they felt deeply responsible for educating others here. Jorge Olivera Castillo is also a talented pianist. Self-taught, having spent years travelling hours daily in order to practice, he doesn’t read music but instead memorizes chords. He has a rich vibrato, and the same taste in music as I do: he likes Stevie Wonder, Juan Luis Guerra, Ivette Cepeda.

After dinner on Noche Buena, when all of my relatives had gone, Nancy and her son Brian urged Jorge to join my father at the piano. We all sang along to “Isn’t She Lovely,” “Eres la Música que Tengo que Cantar,” and “Cara a Cara,” as they took turns accompanying us. It was beautiful, to watch that kind of unburdening. Jorge and Nancy, brave Cuban dissidents, but not only that, no. Jorge is working on both a collection of short stories and a collection of poetry at Harvard. We discussed these and other questions in our conversation on December 2nd, 2016, one week after Castro’s death. I have translated his answers into English myself.

***

This past last week has been a very important one in the history of Cuba, the exile community, and the international stage in general. How are you feeling? I feel that this event has reenergized the idea that we are approaching the possibility of a process of democratization in Cuba. I know many are connecting Castro’s death to immediate change. I don’t think immediate change is possible; there is still so much left to do. Castro’s death is symbolic, however. His is the death of a person who has done much damage to Cuba, over the last four, five generations. So much damage: so many deaths, so many political prisoners. His death symbolizes the possibility of closing a nefarious chapter for the history of contemporary Cuba, a chance to achieve what so many of us have fought and suffered for. Cubans living under the Castro regime have experienced decades of oppression and abuse. Are they resigned? Hopeful? Cubans in general have lost hope. So many of us are leaving still, through the sea, through the jungles of Central America, and so many of us will continue to leave. Castro might have died, but Castro was retired from the presidency ten years ago. Cuba will continue to be governed by Raul Castro. Cubans know this, and expect little change. But for those of us who remain faithful to the struggle for human rights, there is a ray of hope. Fidel Castro is an icon. I believe that in a certain sense his death will have an impact, particularly on those forces that support his politics. I won’t lose hope that we can find a model that benefits us as all. You’ve called Castro’s power a symbolic one; this seems to me to be a kind of power connected to literature. Of course. With Fidel Castro there is the question of narrative. Fidel Castro will be remembered in some way. I think that when his story is really known—it is going to take some time—he will be repudiated. The legacy Fidel Castro leaves is a dismal legacy. I can speak with authority because I suffered it, but so many have seen it from afar, or perhaps have forgotten it because they have already spent so much time outside of Cuba. It will take many years for the historical narrative, the story of Castro, to be formed: Castroism has to be dismantled. Only then can those who have been fooled by the romanticism of Castroism know the whole truth.

Photo by Henry Vega Ortiz

Is Castro’s death going to impact your stories and your poems? I have always tried to reflect in my works, both narrative and poetic, the outline of my experiences and life in Cuba. I never explicitly set my stories in Cuba: I try to reflect the reality of Cuba, without naming it. This reflection sometimes takes the form of a tragicomedy, only because life there is often so absurd that I have to integrate elements of humor in my work. I cannot say for certain that it will, but perhaps somehow in my future work, the death of Fidel Castro, and the potential consequences of his death, will be embodied. You have decided to return to Cuba after your time at Harvard. What do you think of the Cubans who have escaped the regime? Should they have stayed and fought for freedom like you? One can’t criticize. I have never asked why someone has left or has stayed; it’s an individual decision. The decisions of every human being should be respected; it is for this belief that we work to build a democratic Cuba. We must follow what we preach. It is difficult to fight in Cuba. It requires elements of resistance that not every human being has. And I’m not simply discussing Cuban resistance. If you study the movements of all exsocialist liberation, of social struggles such as those of Martin Luther King, of Gandhi, there are only ever a few people willing to resist. The majority opt to leave, or to live in such a way that creates fewer problems. This is understandable. In Cuba, people live like zombies. This is because of repression, fear, poverty. People do not think about freedoms, such as freedom of expression. People are consumed by the concerns of daily sustenance. A whole society becomes kidnapped through induced misery. What led you to publicize your disdain for the government’s policies in 1993 and join the dissident movement? It was a process of maturation. I once believed in the principles of the revolution. Since I was young, I was bombarded with all kinds of propaganda favorable to the government. We were conditioned by fear. Imagine, I worked in television, and part of my work there occurred in the information services department. I witnessed how the information was manipulated in favor of what the single party wanted. And that was a process of disenchantment. Then came the fundamental decision to remove the mask

from what I had learned. In 1993 this day arrived, and I decided to assume all the consequences. Do you feel bitter when you think about your suffering? There are scars ... anyone who has suffered so much carries, at least in my case after almost more than two decades in the fight, scars. I was abused by the repressive forces in Cuba, but I have no resentment towards them in my heart. Not everyone guilty will have to pay for their actions; Cuban totalitarianism has lasted too long and many are to blame. We have all been guilty by omission, and this has to be kept in mind. And in my case, I tell you, I have suffered enough. I believe in Cuba and the importance of building a future in the best way possible. I will have to forgive many people in order to do so. We must leave the hate aside—everything they did aside—but these are difficult things to forget. Your work deals with your experiences in prison, and Cuba’s political climate. It also focuses on love. How is love present in your work? When you risk everything, what or who are you loving? I love my friends, I love my wife, I love my family, my mother, my brothers. I’m prone to pessimism: still, human beings are made up of many and varying feelings. Love is present in everything. There is no stronger feeling. In my work, as you said, there is room for love. There is room for pain, but there is room for love too. How do you balance the challenges of artistry with the responsibility you feel to make political statements? As a writer, as an intellectual, as a fiction writer, and as a poet, the risk is to fall into propaganda. You can make a political statement, as you are doing now, in a journalistic article, which carries its own ethical standards, its own brand of professionalism. And in art, you can criticize with elegance. In poetry, I have written many political poems that deal with Cuba’s reality but do not fall into the simplicity of propaganda, its crude criticism, which has no validity as art. I seek, as an artist and as a writer, something that has artistic value but that also retains an unquestioning object: social criticism. This balance is possible, but it requires talent.

Photos courtesy of Nancy Alfaya and Grazie Sophia Christie

Are you afraid to return to Cuba? Are you afraid to speak honestly in the United States? Fear is a human manifestation. I have been afraid. I cannot ignore it. The important thing is to overcome that barrier of fear, as I once did. I overcome it every time I face a new situation. My return to Cuba involves many things, including the possibility of returning to jail. I was condemned to 18 years in prison in the Black Spring in March of 2003. I obtained a special permit to leave the country and return only once. I am practically on parole. Yes, the possibility of prison is open, but that does not take away my desire to return to Cuba. I’ve spent most of my life in this fight; this time at Harvard is only an interlude. I am not looking for martyrdom. I do not want to join the pantheon of heroes. But this is something that defines me as a person. I have invested my time in something I think is worth it, not only for me, but for my family and the generations that will follow. Maybe my own contribution will not matter much, but at least what I am contributing to seems very significant for the future of Cuba. What do you want to do here at Harvard? Above all, it is important that I make known a side of Cuba that is not known much outside the country. I want to share my point of view—which is not absolute—with professors. I want to remove the romanticism that has become associated with Castroism in the academic institutions of the United States and much of the world. I want to have time to continue my literary work, in a quiet environment, without worrying that the police will knock on my door, or that I will be taken prisoner, or that someone will be posted in front of my house to shout at me for hours, calling me a “counter-revolutionary” or a “mercenary.” This is very important for me. I am in the search for solidarity, for people who understand me and what it means for me to express my opinions in Cuba. I have to make it known that the Cuban government is able to imprison someone like me, a thousand kilometers from my home, and keep me in solitary confinement for 9 months, without sunlight, only for running a small independent press agency. You spoke to me before about your work against racism in Cuba. Well, racism in Cuba has become a sort of cumulative theme, a phenomenon that has been camouflaged and has gone unnoticed. Citizens of Cuba that are of African descent are regulated in every way: they

are unable to access jobs that pay slightly better, and face oppressive stereotypes. This challenges the idyllic equality promised by the Cuban revolution. A significant challenge is that while the Cuban government accepts this problem, discussion remains in the academic realm. There are no real social projects underway to combat racism in Cuba. I know so many Cuban-Americans—like myself— who have grown up feeling intensely connected to a country they have never seen. What is it about Cuba, about the Cuban culture, that makes this possible? I am aware that many Cubans living in the diaspora have not lost their connection to Cuba: I defend that they are as Cuban as we are. I believe that they are part of an indivisible nation: we are always Cubans first. I admire young people like you, and especially your parents, who have honored the flag of their homeland. I am not being a patriot here; these are words I feel deeply. I respect those Cubans who have maintained their culture, their customs—and these are the real customs, the actual customs, not those that Castroism has instilled in Cuba. I think they will be important for Cuba’s cultural reconstruction in the future. I was celebrating on the streets of Little Havana, in the middle of the night, after I found out that Castro died. I felt something very special there; something I feel in my Cuban family. It is a kind of happiness I don’t feel is as proximate in other cultures. Of course, I’m biased. Still, I felt it more on that day than I normally do, but I feel like it is always present. Do you feel that joy is especially important in Cuban culture? I think so. And with that joy comes the dramatic story of exile. Exile is not easy. Now that I’ve studied here in Boston, even after only four months, I feel a certain nostalgia. I think of those people who have been out of their natural context for years, for decades. It must be terrible, especially without being able to return. There is a virtue in Cuba, intangible, but also real. Something that stays in Cuba. Our spirit, our ancestors were born there and something of us remains there, even after we leave. But then I wonder at young people like you, and I have met others, who feel Cuban and seem Cuban in their way of speaking, even if they have been born here in the United States. They have not even lost their accent. Most Cubans I have met here possess this longing for Cuba, but also this Cubanness that, curiously, survives outside of Cuba. I am learning about this, and I know it can be used in my poetry at some point, or in my stories.

You’ve discussed the way that Castroism has depended on a manipulation of the truth, what you’ve described as a process of romanticization and propaganda. For me, what attracts me to Cuban culture is that it is frank and honest. My grandmother, my mother, my aunts always tell me the truth even if I do not want to hear it; there is no such thing as a family secret, because they always come out within days. Has that changed in Cuba? You said something very interesting. Communism is based on a lie. And I’m not saying anything new. This has been said by historians and people who have studied since 1917, when communism triumphed in Russia. Communism has cost more than 100 million lives. But out of all the violations that have been committed in the name of the dictatorship of the proletariat and the revolution of the poor for the poor, one of the worst has been dishonesty, and the constant recycling of lies. The lies and the terror. What is your relationship to other Cuban poets, like José Martí. Do you continue their great work? I think in a way I do, without trying to do so. I do not pretend to be someone like Martí, who was a great poet, a great intellectual, and one of the most illustrious thinkers in not only Cuban history but also in Latin American history as a whole. Martí left a fascinating legacy, which was sadly manipulated by many, including Castro, who used him as a symbol for his revolution. One of the things that interests me about Martí’s poetry is its poignancy, the values it manifests beyond the purely literary. Much of the life I have had to live I have expressed and reflected in my poetry. I have exorcised through poetry many things – things that are good in the sense that they have been my feelings, non-manipulated, only what is born in the heart. Poetry cannot be conditioned; poetry is not something that is born in the brain. Are there other writers who have influenced you? Gaston Vaquero, who died in exile; Reinaldo Arenas, who died in exile as well; Roberto Padilla, who died in exile in Connecticut; Raul Rivero, a great friend, a founder of independent journalism in Cuba. He is exiled here. And others in Cuba, who remain in Cuba. There are many Non-Cuban writers who have influenced me: Neruda, Borges, Juan Helman, Vallejo. And American writers, of course: Whitman, Emily Dickinson, Emerson, Edgar Lee Masters. Poetry as a genre does not have many readers, but it will never die. I think it is the most spontaneous and visceral literary genre. So poetry cannot not die; at least, I will not let it die. I will always have something to say through its verses.

Photo courtesy of Nancy Alfaya

They have Emily Dickinson’s desk at the Houghton Library! I think I would like it. Hopefully it would inspire me to write a poem. In Cuba, I have antique copies of her books. Her power of synthesis, of concentrating so many ideas, and her use of the ellipsis—she is an example of how to offer so much in a short space, how to use an economy of verses to express so many emotions. My own poems are very short. I try to condense as many ideas I can. I have two other favorite writers. Kafka? Yes. Of course, Metamorphosis, which revolutionized literature and created a new model for writing, especially for those writers that developed magical realism in Latin America: Garcia Marquez, Espinosa, Octavio Paz, Carlos Fuentes. There is another American writer that has impacted me greatly. I wrote a book that is a kind of memorial to Edgar Allen Poe. I find him admirable for his poetry but also much, much more: for his short stories, where he left his stamp for posterity. I had a book published in Spain in 2007 called Huésped Del Inferno. In this book, I try to offer a perspective of my experiences as a political prisoner through ten short stories. When I wrote it I thought of it as a tribute to Poe’s own terrifying literature. And I did not have to imagine it, as he did. I had to live it, in prison. His poems as well, of course, have shaped my writing; his story, “The Pit and the Pendulum,” too. My favorite writer is Nabokov, and one of his favorite writers was Poe, as well. I find that is interesting because your writing is very, very different from Nabokov’s writing. Well, Nabokov said he had no political or moral motives in his writing; I’m not sure I always agree. I write short stories. My poems are short. I do not have the breath of a novelist. But that’s why I read many stories, rather than novels. You must always read for references. And I reread, which is fundamental with the classics. You have to read Chekhov, Maupassant, the Russians. One must keep up the strength, the energy, necessary to continue writing. You recently went to Europe for the first time. Yes, to Prague. The city of Kafka. Very romantic, impressive. This, treading other lands, is something that a writer needs, to nourish himself— and above all to extend his own creative horizon. To see new architecture, to know new cultures, new languages, new interesting details. At least to me, this first time seeing the world outside of Cuba freely, I have met many wonderful people. I really feel a great affection for this country. I have not known its bad side. Nothing is perfect, but this country has democracy. There is a respect for institutions. This is essential. I trust American citizens, who have the tools to defend their rights.

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