Josefina García-Marruz Badía (Havana, 1923), Cuba’s greatest living poet until this Monday, will be remembered as one of the most relevant female figures in Latin American literature, recognized with important awards that highlighted her despite her preference for discretion and silence.
In addition to being an extraordinary poet, García-Marruz, who died at the age of 99, was an essayist, researcher and literary critic.
The writer, who walked through various genres of print, became the second woman to receive the National Prize for Literature in 1990, after the award was given to the outstanding poet Dulce María Loynaz, in 1987.
Two decades later, he received the Pablo Neruda Ibero-American Poetry Prize, awarded by the Chilean Ministry of Culture, Arts and Heritage.
Asked in one of the few interviews she gave in life, García-Marruz said that it was “an honor, a surprise.” And she said “very grateful, but before an award, whatever it is, one always thinks of so many writers who they deserved, and they did not receive it.
His poetry has been translated into several languages. Among other anthologies, it appears in the one made by Carmen Conde under the title “Eleven great Latin American poetesses”, published in Madrid, in 1967 and in Margaret Randall’s: “Breaking the Silence” (Breaking the silence), published in Vancouver, Canada. , in 1982.
She was also a declared admirer of the Mexican poet Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, whose “sensitivity and style” she distinguished.
She considered herself “lucky” because she said she never needed to take her poems to anyone because she had her husband, Cintio Vitier, and her brother-in-law, the great poet Eliseo Diego, and friends like Lezama Lima at home.
His relationship with music, despite the fact that he did not learn any instrument, came from his family environment and he affirmed that it was “stronger, almost, than poetry (…) without music I feel bad”.
In fact, he came to ensure that his greatest pride was his children, the talented instrumentalists and composers Sergio and José María Vitier, both winners of the National Music Award in 2014 and 2021, respectively.
HIS ESSAY AND SPIRITUALITY
Scholars of his literary work highlight the “unique spirituality” of his poetry. As literary researcher Enrique Saínz describes it, it is “made of moods, intuitions and revelations of reality that we do not see in other Cuban poets.”
As for his essays, he believes that they reveal “a perception of textual values”, “without academicism, of strictly artistic prose”.
Fina García-Marruz and Cintio Vitier, professed the Catholic religion, a common trait among most of the intellectuals of the so-called Grupo Orígenes, gathered around the homonymous magazine that was published in Havana from 1944 to 1956.
In that group a deep spirituality prevailed and they were related in the elaboration of the poem with an elevated language and innovative images.
OTHER DISTINCTIONS
In 2011 he added a new recognition to his extensive list after receiving the 8th Federico García Lorca City of Granada International Poetry Prize, which recognizes the poetic work of a living author who, due to their literary value, constitutes a relevant contribution to heritage. culture of Hispanic literature.
As a culmination, and to crown a round year in his literary career, he also won the Reina Sofía Prize in 2011, one of the most prestigious of its kind in Latin America.
The delivery was considered a tribute to the group of poets gathered in the magazine ‘Orígenes’, to which great names such as José Lezama Lima, Eliseo Diego, Gastón Baquero, and her husband Cintio Vitier belonged.
The writer was decorated with the orders of the Cuban cultural “Félix Varela”, “Alejo Carpentier” and “José Martí”, and the National Award for Cultural Research in 2005.
FINA, HER SHYNESS AND SILENCE
Years ago, García-Marruz confessed that she avoided interviews or talking about herself because she felt “in those cases like a violinist who is asked for a flute concert.”
“I communicate better with silence, without which poetry, music, or the encounter with oneself could not occur,” he specified then.
She worked from 1962 as a literary researcher at the José Martí National Library in Havana and from its foundation, in 1977, until 1987 she belonged to the Center for Martian Studies, where she reached the category of Literary Researcher, integrated into the team that produced the critical edition of the Complete Works of José Martí.
He maintained a special dedication to the study of the work of José Martí, which is the result of “Martian Themes” -in three series- and “Anti-imperialist Texts of José Martí”, among other titles.
His publications include poems (1942), Transfiguration of Jesus on the Mount (1947), the lost looks (1951), Visitations (1970), selected poems (1984), The family of origins (1997), talk about poetry (1986) and Charlotte Credits (1990), these last winners of the Critics’ Prize for the years 1987 and 1991 in Cuba.
The poet, essayist and researcher Fina García-Marruz dies in Havana