DATA OF INTEREST

GUEST:
JOSÉ W. LEGASPI

HOST:
ANAELI IBARRA


Synopsis:

A conversation with José Legaspi, the Uruguayan writer and ex-communist who today advocates for a democratic left. Legaspi joined the Uruguayan Communist Youth in 1983 and in 1987 traveled to Cuba, to the Escuela de Cuadros of the Young Communist League. He spoke about the role of these types of schools in the project of exporting the Cuban Revolution, the mythic construction of the figure of Fidel Castro and the Revolution, the impact of the Causa No. 1 and No. 2 trials among the Revolution´s allies and the place that post-1959 Cuba has occupied in the political imaginary of the Latin American Left.

Bio:

José Legaspi was born in Montevideo, Uruguay, on September 16, 1964. He attended school first at the República de Chile public school from 1970-1973, and following the fascist coup in Uruguay, at the Escuela y Liceo Elbio Fernández from 1974 onward. In 1983 he began Law School at the Universidad de la República (Udelar), where he joined the Cuban Young Communist League (UJC) and a year later transferred to the school of Humanities and Sciences to study a degree in History. In 1987 he traveled to Havana, Cuba, to the Julio A. Mella Escuela de Cuadros of the Young Communist League located in East Havana where the Villa of the 1991 Pan American Games would later be located. On returning to Uruguay, he joined the National Propaganda Commission of the UJC, until ceasing activity in the Communist Party in 1990.

Since returning Legaspi began publishing as a writer. In 1994 the Mexican publication “Blanco Móvil” published his short story “El Salvavidas” (Issue 64: “Fin de Milenio: Literatura Uruguaya”.) In 1997, Editorial Latina published four of his stories in the anthology “DisparArte”. In 2010 the anthology “Desde el Rincón” published five of his poems. In 2013, Rumbo Editorial published his book of short stories “Y las luces se apagaron”, which was released at the Havana International Book Fair in February 2014.

From 2010-2012 Legaspi studied to be a writing workshop instructor at Quipus, a training institute recognized by the Ministry of Education and Culture (MEC) coordinated by Lauro Marauda, Lía Schenck, Carmen Galusso and Fabián Severo. He coordinated the writing workshop at Kalima Boliche from 2012-2014, and also studied Arts and Cultural Management at the Universidad del Centro Latinoamericano de Estudios Humanos (Claeh) in 2017. Since September 2016 he has worked as an editor and columnist for the Uruguyan news website Agencia Uypress, and since June 2021 he is part of the editorial team of the cultural magazine eXtramuros.

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José W. Legaspi

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