Literary Studies Research Seminar: Rara avis: Strange Journeys in the Cuban 60s Political Wilds

This presentation explores our semester-long investigations regarding intellectual networks of exchange to and within Cuba in the 1960s. We will discuss this question in relation to Afro-Cuban poet Nancy Morejon’s testimonial text Lengua de Pájaro. Though this text was one of the first in what would become a foundational genre for conceiving of “Latin America” through the voices of the voiceless in the 70s, and Morejón a highly respected national poet, the book was ignored.  We will present some of the reasons for Lengua de Pájaro's obscurity and the questions this raises about race, commitment and the relations between city and countryside in the Cuban and international public spheres of the time.  Finally, we will present some of the work we have done around amplifying the place of dissident-novelist Reinaldo Arenas, and particularly his first novel Celestino antes del alba, in shaping views of these problematics in the study of Latin America today.