DATA OF INTEREST

GUEST:
JUAN MANUEL SALVAT


HOST:
JOAQUÍN BADAJOZ


Synopsis:

Conversation with Juan Manuel Salvat, founder of the Bookstore and Distributor Universal and the publishing label Ediciones Universal, one of the largest catalogs of cuban authors. Salvat is considered a pioneer of the independent Cuban publishers of the diaspora and this year celebrates fifty-eight years of uninterrupted editorial activity.

Bio:


Juan M. Salvat, founder and director of Ediciones Universal (Sagua La Grande, Las Villas, Cuba, 1940). Political activist and editor. I study at school Jesuit of Sagua and at the University of Havana. As deputy secretary of the Association In 1959, Católica Universitaria published the university newspapers Trinchera and Manicato. Salvat was expelled from the University of Havana in May 1960 for his political activity, he He took refuge in the Brazilian Embassy in Havana, and left Cuba in August of that same year. In 1962 co-founded the anti-Castro and anti-communist organization Directorio Revolucionario Estudiantil (DRE) from which he continued his activity against the communist regime in Havana.

Salvat and his wife Marta started the business of selling books in Spanish in 1965, distributing books by mail and through catalogs from a small office. In 1966 he created the Universal Bookstore and Distributor, beginning a year later to publish books under the label Universal Editions. After several previous locations since 1975, the Universal Library was established in the 1980s in the emblematic building at 3080 Calle 8 and Avenida 31 del Miami's South West, which for three decades, until its closure in 2013, was a place of gatherings, book presentations, meetings with writers and debates about reality Cuban, exile and the future of Cuba. Salvat celebrates fifty-eight years of uninterrupted editorial activity in 2023.

VIDEO

"Independent Publishers" Series: Conversation with Juan Manuel Salvat

PODCAST