DATA OF INTEREST
GUEST:
María Elena Cruz Varela
HOST:
Anaeli Ibarra
Synopsis:
The poet María Elena Cruz Varela talks about her role in Criterio Alternativo, a group of 10 Cuban intellectuals who in 1991 promoted the letter known as the «Carta de los diez», an open letter to Fidel Castro in which they requested the democratization of the regime. Censorship and repression were their answer. She talks about her arrest in her own home in front of her teenage daughter and neighbors vocalizing protest chants and her sentencing, after an incredibly brief summary trial, to two years of jail. Prison. Exile. An incredibly moving conversation.
Bio:
María Elena Cruz Varela
(Colón Cuba, 1953)
María Elena Cruz Varela is a Cuban journalist, poet, and novelist. She was the leader of the Cuban dissident group Criterio Alternativo. She was sentenced by a Cuban court, after an exceedingly brief summary trial, to two years of prison. She abandoned Cuba in 1994 and lived briefly in Spain before moving to the United States. She has now returned to Spain and lives in Madrid.
