Writer Padura Describes Literary Creation in Cuba as ‘Disastrous’

HAVANA TIMES — Cuban writer Leonardo Padura warned this week at the Casa de las Americas about the “disastrous state” of novelistic creation in Cuba because of the difficulties faced by islanders who write, reported the EFE news service.

Lack of resources, misinformation about trends elsewhere, precarious internet access and poor promotional efforts were some of the problems identified by Padura while at that cultural institution, which this year has dedicated its annual “Author Week” to that novelist.

After his opening address, Padura read an excerpt from his forthcoming novel Herejes (Heretics), to be published in September 2013 first by the Spanish publisher Tusquets and later by the Cuban government.

In Herejes, Padura’s best-known character returns, Cuban police detective Mario Conde, who was the main protagonist in the writer’s tetralogy Cuatro estaciones.