The Cuban Cultural Policy (And its Questioning) in Contemporary Cuban Narrative: La grieta (2018), Las palabras perdidas (1992), Las voces y los ecos (2004) y La noria (2013).

Abstract

In the novels that concern us —La grieta, Las palabras perdidas, Las voces y los ecos y La noria—, the characters try to carry out their artistic and professional purposes under the pressure of a State Apparatus that sanctions or makes them illegitimate. The problematic relationship between the Cuban State and artistic creation since the Quinquenio Gris allows, through fiction, a questioning of Cuban Cultural Politics that began in the sixties, and a reflection on the role of the intellectuals on the island. The conflictive relationship between the artist and the Cuban State finds its most repressive stage in the so-called years of the Quinquenio Gris (1971-1976). This persecution of artists left a dent in the society of the moment but also in later generations of writers, who will take it up again in their novels from different perspectives.