Leonardo Padura

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Leonardo Padura (2008)
Leonardo Padura in Berlin (2008)

Leonardo Padura Fuentes (* 1955 in Havana ) is one of the most successful and popular contemporary writers in Cuba and has completely renewed the Cuban detective novel (la novela neopolicíaca / neopolicial). He has received numerous awards and prizes for his work.

life and work

In 1980 Padura graduated from the University of Havana with a degree in literature . His reports as a journalist at El caimán barbudo were very successful. But since they scratched taboos, he switched to the youth magazine Juventud rebelde as a sanction . He also published literary essays and books. He wrote about Alejo Carpentier , Inca Garcilaso de la Vega, and the life and work of various other Cuban and Latin American authors. In 1989 he became editor-in-chief of La Gaceta de Cuba and began writing detective novels.

In his “Havana Quartet” he captures the specific mood of the crisis years at the beginning of the 1990s , when Cuba suffered economically from the breakdown of solidarity and trade relations with the former Eastern Bloc . The police commissioner Teniente (lieutenant) Mario Conde as protagonist represents a generation of disappointed and romantically nostalgic . He suffers from the working conditions and consequently separates himself from the police profession in the course of his personality development in the last volume of the tetralogy The Sea of ​​Illusions . It's very similar to Jean-Claude Izzo's Marseille trilogy. Mario Conde, who continues to investigate death puzzles that increasingly lie in the past, makes his way through the last three novels of the now seven-part series as a seller and seller of antiquarian books. In any case, the author was never interested in depicting real police work, but insisted that his characters should above all obey narrative laws.

Padura uses the crime genre as a framework for social novels that reflect the worlds of experience and the lifestyle of contemporary Cubans. In doing so, he breaks with the clichés that used to be common . Cubans from higher social classes are portrayed in a role as perpetrators, which would not have been possible in Cuba at the time of the state-sponsored socialist crime novel (Luis Rogelio Nogueras, Daniel Chavarría).

In the novel The Man Who Loved Dogs, he describes the life of Ramón Mercader , Leon Trotsky's time in exile and the life of the Cuban writer Iván, who Mercader met by chance on the beach in Havana, in three narrative strands .

». . . the promise to keep as little as possible secret from one another, that climate in which true friendship flourishes. "

- Leonardo Padura : Heretic, German by Hans-Joachim Hartstein; Union, Zurich 2014

The “Havanna Quartet” also forms the basis for the 2016 television series “Four Seasons in Havana”, which can be seen in German on Netflix. The series consists of four episodes, "The Winds of Lent", "Perfect Past", "Masks" and "Autumn Landscapes". Leonardo Padura and his wife, the Cuban screenwriter Lucia López Coll have restructured the stories about the police lieutenant Mario Conde and given them a cinematographic framework.

Awards

With the Sea of ​​Illusions , Padura was honored at number 2 and with Labyrinth of Masks at number 10 in the KrimiWelt 2005 best list for the best detective novel of the year. For Adiós Hemingway , Leonardo Padura received the German Crime Prize - International, 3rd place in 2007 , while he was twice awarded the prestigious Spanish Crime Prize Premio Hammett for The Sea of ​​Illusions and La Neblina del ayer . In 2008, Padura achieved 5th place in the KrimiWelt best list for the best crime novel of the previous year with Der Nebel von Yesterday . In 2011 he was awarded the French Prix Roger Caillois for Latin American Literature. In 2012 he received the Cuban National Prize for Literature and in 2013 the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres awarded by the French state . For 2015 he was awarded the Princess of Asturias Prize for Literature.

Works

Novels

Tetralogy Las cuatro estaciones , dt. 'The Havana Quartet'

  • 1991 Pasado perfecto
    • A perfect life , German by Hans-Joachim Hartstein; Union, Zurich 2003, ISBN 3-293-00315-X
  • 1994 Vientos de cuaresma
    • Trade of feelings , German by Hans-Joachim Hartstein; Union, Zurich 2004, ISBN 3-293-00322-2
  • 1997 Máscaras
    • Labyrinth of masks , German by Hans-Joachim Hartstein; Union, Zurich 2005, ISBN 3-293-00323-0
  • 1998 Paisaje de otoño
    • The Sea of ​​Illusions , German by Hans-Joachim Hartstein; Union, Zurich 2005, ISBN 3-293-00324-9

stories

  • Fiebre de caballos, 1988
  • Según pasan los años, 1989
  • La puerta de Alcalá y otras cacerías, 1997
  • La cola de la serpiente, 1998 (later expanded into the novel of the same name)
  • Nueve noches con Amada Luna, 2006, ISBN 978-8-49659250-6
  • Un hombre en una isla, Sed de belleza, Santa Clara 2012
  • Aquello estaba deseando ocurrir, Tusquets, Barcelona 2015, ISBN 978-8-490-66038-6
    • Nine nights with Violeta . Stories. Translated from the Spanish by Hans-Joachim Hartstein. Unionsverlag, Zurich 2016, ISBN 978-3-293-00505-1

Essays

  • Con la espada y con la pluma: comentarios al Inca Garcilaso de la Vega, 1984
  • Colón, Carpentier, la mano, el arpa y la sombra, 1987
  • El alma en el terreno, 1989 (interviews)
  • Lo real maravilloso: creación y realidad, 1989
  • Un camino de medio siglo: Alejo Carpentier y la narrativa de lo real maravilloso, 1994
  • Modernidad, posmodernidad y novela policial, 2000
  • José María Heredia: La patria y la vida, Ediciones Unión, Havanna 2003, ISBN 978-9-59209469-7

Journalistic work

  • El viaje más largo, 1994
  • Los rostros de la salsa, 1997
  • La noche triste de Chano Pozo, biographical report from 1985 republished as an e-book on iTunes in 2013

Television films

  • The winds of Lent, 2016, directed by Felix Viscarret
  • Perfect Past, 2016
  • Masks, 2016
  • Autumn landscapes, 2016

Web links

Commons : Leonardo Padura  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b c Online crime magazine "Kaliber 38" from 2005: Long interview by Doris Wieser
  2. ↑ Leonardo Padura: Heretic: A Mario Conde Novel . Unionsverlag, 2015, p. 656 ( full text in Google Book Search).
  3. ^ John Hopewell: Wild Bunch, Tornasol, Padura, Viscarret Unveil 'Four Seasons in Havana' (EXCLUSIVE) . In: Variety , April 19, 2016.
  4. ↑ Leonardo Padura, Premio Nacional de Literatura 2012 , in: Café Fuerte from December 18, 2012 (Spanish)
  5. ^ Leonardo Padura, Officier des Arts et Lettres. Message from the French Embassy in Cuba of January 29, 2013, accessed on November 6, 2013 (French)
  6. ^ Escape from the novel of life in FAZ from January 26, 2016, page 12
  7. ↑ Hot storms over Cuba , review by Michaela Schmitz on the trade of feelings in: Rheinischer Merkur from November 25, 2004.
  8. ↑ Cuba thriller full of melancholy, passion and humor , review by Michaela Schmitz of The Sea of ​​Illusions on Domradio.
personal data
SURNAME Padura, Leonardo
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Padura Fuentes, Leonardo (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Cuban writer and journalist
DATE OF BIRTH 1955
PLACE OF BIRTH Havana