Carlos Franqui

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Carlos Franqui (2006)

Carlos Franqui (born December 4, 1921 in Clavellinas (near Cifuentes), Las Villas province , † April 16, 2010 in San Juan , Puerto Rico ) was an important Cuban poet , writer , journalist and art critic , who worked as a publicist for the revolutionary movement of the On July 26th he played an important role in Fidel Castro's takeover , but from 1968 he openly opposed his policies.

Life

Until 1958

Carlos Franqui was born in 1921 as the son of Cuban farmers. Thanks to a scholarship, he was able to study in Havana and worked there as an editor for the daily newspaper Hoy ("Today") of the Communist Party of Cuba (PSP) until he left the party in 1946 in a dispute. In 1947 he took part with Fidel Castro in an armed expedition directed against Rafael Trujillo , the dictator of the Dominican Republic , which failed early on. In the early 1950s he worked for the weekly political and cultural newspaper Carteles . After Fulgencio Batista's military coup in March 1952, he took an active part in the resistance movement. After arrest and torture he went into exile in Mexico and Florida, from where he organized arms and money deliveries to the underground fighters in his homeland. From 1958 he fought as a member of the July 26th Movement on the side of Fidel Castro in the Sierra Maestra and served him as a consultant and organizer of public relations. Franqui headed Radio Rebelde and founded the guerrilla newspaper Revolución as an organ of the movement.

From 1959

Shortly after the revolution, he did not always agree with the official line and observed with concern in particular the increasing concentration of political rule in the hands of Fidel Castro and the involvement of functionaries of the Communist Party. After Batista's flight and the subsequent seizure of power by the revolutionaries, Revolución appeared as the official daily newspaper. A prominent space for cultural debate defended by Franqui in the newspaper he ran was the weekly literary supplement Lunes de Revolución . She was responsible for the writer Guillermo Cabrera Infante , but was hired in 1961. In 1963, Franqui gave up his post under increasing pressure, two years later Revolución was merged with the newspaper Hoy to form Granma , the new organ of the Communist Party of Cuba. From 1963, Franqui worked as an unofficial cultural ambassador for the Cuban Revolution in Europe, where he met intellectuals and artists such as Pablo Picasso , Joan Miró , Alexander Calder and Jean-Paul Sartre . It promoted the exchange between Cuba and the contemporary art of Europe and thus stood in contradiction to the socialist realism propagated by the Soviet Union as a counter-model .

From 1968

When Castro approved the invasion of the Warsaw Pact troops in Czechoslovakia in 1968 , Franqui fell out with the Cuban regime and went into exile in Italy . Since then, his work as a writer and poet has increased significantly. In the following years he was an important activist against the regime under Castro: Above all, his active role in the revolution helped him to gain increased credibility. Since the beginning of the 1990s he lived in exile in Puerto Rico, half withdrawn, and until his death published the Carta de Cuba , a quarterly magazine with outstanding journalistic articles from Cuba.

Works (selection)

  • Cuba: Le livre des Douze. (Spanish edition: El libro de los doce ), Gallimard, Paris 1965.
  • Relatos: revolución cubana. Sandino, Montevideo 1970.
  • Diario de la revolución cubana. (English edition: Diary of the Cuban Revolution ), R. Torres, Barcelona 1976.
  • Retrato de familia con Fidel. (English edition: Family Portrait with Fidel. A memoir ), Seix Barral, Barcelona 1981.
  • Vida, Aventuras y Desastres de un Hombre llamado Castro . Planeta, Barcelona 1988, ISBN 978-8432044267 .
  • Mirar las palabras. Cocodrilo Verde, Madrid 2000.
  • Camilo Cienfuegos . Seix Barral, Barcelona 2001, ISBN 978-8432208614 .
  • Cuba, La Revolución. Mito o Realidad; memorias de un fantasma socialista . Penínsular Ediciones, Barcelona 2006, ISBN 84-8307-725-6 .

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Franqui, Carlos
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Cuban poet, writer, journalist and art critic
DATE OF BIRTH 4th December 1921
PLACE OF BIRTH Clavellinas
DATE OF DEATH April 16, 2010
Place of death San Juan , Puerto Rico