Abstract Seven 1999

GLOBAL

DEVELOPMENT STUDIES

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Volume One Winter 1998-Spring 1999 Numbers 3-4.

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LITERARY CRITIQUE: BLINDNESS AND POSSIBILITY

Victor Fowler Calsada

Juan Marinello Center for Cuban Cultural Studies

Avenida Boyeros #63

Plaza de La Revolución

Ciudad de La Habana, 10600, Cuba

Published online: December 15, 2016

ABSTRACT

The case is made succinctly that Cuban literature, since the middle of the 1990s, has been emerging from a period of severe damage to Cuban social thought. One result of the damage arising from the ideological or cultural Cold War is a "blindness" exhibited by those who normally have first access to and evaluate contemporary Cuban literature. Established writers of literary criticism have responded to the new plurality of literary production— for example, women/feminist, gay and lesbian, marginalized youth, and anti-hero writings—either with a knee-jerk reaction, seeing these diverse works as evidence of hostile, "outside" influences or with "blindness" to their existence, simply ignoring the newer trends. Some examples are suggested for further reading.