DATA OF INTEREST

GUEST:
RAFAEL VILCHES PROENZA

HOST:
GRETHEL DOMENECH


Synopsis:

Interview with Rafael Vilches Proenza, writer, poet and opponent of the Cuban regime. On this occasion he tells us about his beginnings in literature in Cuba and how from a very young age he began to experience the censorship of Cuban institutions towards his literary work and towards intellectual magazines in which he participated such as Brifonte, which he founded together with writers Luis Felipe Rojas Rosabal, Michael Hernández and Padre Olvier Hernández Carbonell. His stance and critical works and his relations with other writers and dissidents in Orient and Central Cuba (Bayamo, Holguin and Santa Clara) led to his expulsion from UNEAC and constant threats by the State Security. The persecution and harassment he lived through by the Cuban political police included constant summons and interrogations with the State Security, acts of repudiation and threats to his life and to his family that led him to go into exile from Cuba to Spain in early 2023.

Bio:

Rafael Vilches Proenza

Rafael Vilches Proenza (Granma, 1965) Writer, poet and opponent of the Cuban regime. In the late nineties he began attending several literary workshops, among them the Onelio Jorge Cardoso Literary Training Center from which he graduated in 1998 and joined the official literature institutions. Over time he became close to independent and dissident writers, intellectuals and artists, for which he was expelled from Cuban government institutions. For his criticism of the Cuban regime he has been the object of constant threats, persecution, acts of repudiation, interrogations and surveillance. He is the author of more than a dozen books including the novels Ángeles desamparados (2001), and the renowned Inquisición Roja (2019) about the forced labor camps of the 1960s known as UMAP (Unidades Militares de Ayuda a la Producción) and author of the poetry collections El único hombre (2005), Café amargo (2014) and La luna entre nosotros (2019). In 2020 he won the Reinaldo Arenas Narrative Prize organized by the Puente a la Vista project with the novel Sálvame si puedes. In 2023 he left Cuba for Spain.

VIDEO

Series Art and Censorship: Literature and Dissidence in Cuba

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