José Lezama Lima - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

José Lezama Lima was a Cuba

Cuba

The Republic of Cuba is an island nation in the Caribbean. The nation of Cuba consists of the main island of Cuba, the Isla de la Juventud, and several archipelagos. Havana is the largest city in Cuba and the country's capital. Santiago de Cuba is the second largest city...

n writer and poet who is considered one of the most influential figures in Latin American literature

Latin American literature

Latin American literature consists of the oral and written literature of Latin America in several languages, particularly in Spanish, Portuguese, and indigenous languages of the Americas. It rose to particular prominence globally during the second half of the 20th century, largely due to the...

.

Born in the Columbia Military Encampment close to Havana

Havana

Havana is the capital city, province, major port, and leading commercial centre of Cuba. The city proper has a population of 2.1 million inhabitants, and it spans a total of — making it the largest city in the Caribbean region, and the most populous...

in the city of Marianao where his father was a colonel, Lezama lived through some of the most turbulent times of Cuba's history, fighting against the Machado

Gerardo Machado

Gerardo Machado y Morales was President of Cuba and a general of the Cuban War of Independence...

dictatorship. His literary output includes the semi-autobiographical, baroque novel Paradiso

Paradiso (1966 novel)

Paradiso was the only novel by Cuban poet José Lezama Lima to be completed and published during his lifetime. The narrative consists of the childhood and youth of José Cemí, told in a highly baroque experimental style, and depicts many scenes which have remarkable resonances with Lezama's own life...

(1966), the story of a young man and his struggles with his mysterious illness, the death of his father, and his developing sensuality and poetic sensibilities. Lezama Lima also edited several anthologies of Cuban poetry and the magazines Verbum and Orígenes, presiding as the patriarch of Cuban letters for most of his later years.

Although he only left Cuba on at most two occasions (one trip to Jamaica and a possible trip to Mexico), Lezama's poetry, essays and two novels draw images and ideas from nearly all of the world's cultures and from all historical time periods. The baroque style that he forged relied equally upon his Góngora-influenced syntax and stunning constellations of unlikely images. Lezama Lima's first published work, a long poem called "Muerte de Narciso," released when he was only twenty-seven, made him immediately famous within Cuba and established Lezama's well-wrought style and classical subject matter.

In addition to his poems and novels, Lezama wrote many essays on figures of world literature like Mallarmé

Mallarmé

Mallarmé can refer to:* Stéphane Mallarmé , French poet and critic.* François-René-Auguste Mallarmé , politician during the French Revolution....

, Valéry

Valery

The French name Valery [valri] is a given name or surname of Germanic origin Walaric , that has often been confused in modern time with the latin name Valerius, that explains the variant spelling Valéry [valeri]...

, Góngora

Gongora

Gongora, abbreviated Gga in horticultural trade, is a member of the Orchid family . It consists of 65 species known from Central America, Trinidad, and tropical South America, with most species found in Colombia...

and Rimbaud as well as on Latin American baroque asethetics. Most notably the essays published as La expresión americana lay out his vision of the European baroque, its relation to the classical, and of the American baroque.

José Lezama Lima died in 1976 at age 65 and was buried in the Colon Cemetery, Havana

Colon Cemetery, Havana

The Colon Cemetery or more fully in the Spanish language Cementerio de Cristóbal Colón was founded in 1876 in the Vedado neighbourhood of Havana, Cuba on top of Espada Cemetery. Named for Christopher Columbus, the 140 acre cemetery is noted for its many elaborately sculpted memorials...

. He was influential to Cuban and Puerto Rican writers of his generation and the next, such as Virgilio Piñera

Virgilio Piñera

Virgilio Piñera Llera was a Cuban author, playwright, poet, short-story writer, and essayist.Among his most famous poems are "La isla en peso" , and "La gran puta" . He was a member of the "Origenes" literary group, although he often differed with the conservative views of the group...

, Reinaldo Arenas

Reinaldo Arenas

Reinaldo Arenas was a Cuban poet, novelist, and playwright who despite his early sympathy for the 1959 revolution, grew critical of and then rebelled against the Cuban government.- Life :...

, Fernando Velázquez Medina, René Marqués

René Marques

René Marqués was a renowned Puerto Rican short story writer and playwright.-Early years:Marqués was born, raised and educated in the city of Arecibo...

, and Giannina Braschi

Giannina Braschi

Giannina Braschi is a Puerto Rican writer. She is credited with writing the first Spanglish novel YO-YO BOING! and the poetry trilogy Empire of Dreams , which chronicles the Latin American immigrant's experiences in the United States...

, who depict his life and works in their writing.

23 years after pinning him up the pillory for his "anti-revolutionary activities", the Cuban people pay homage to Lezama Lima through the release of a film, "Strawberry and chocolate" (1994): Lezama is a model to Diego, a wayside gay intellectual; and David, a member of the local communists youths, discovers the author of "Paradiso", and becomes a man after a grand "a la Lezama" supper.

External links

José Lezama Lima Digital Collection at the Cuban Heritage Collection at The University of Miami

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Further reading

External links