Biografía:
Camagüey, 1902 This writer is considered the National Poet of Cuba. He published his first verses in 1920, followed by a volumen of poetry, Cerebro y corazon, marked by the aesthetics of the modernism. He began to study Laws in the University of Havana, but he left the studies disenchanted by the depressing situation of that center, impression he reflected in a poem, Al margen de mis libros de estudio, where he tells about the mediocrity of the universitary life he met. He was a friend of Federico Garcia Lorca and the Northamerican black poet Langston Hughes, which represented a a huge influence in his work. In April, 1930, he wrote his Motivos de son, which, upon being publicated in the Diario de la Marina, shot the poet to a kind of polemic celebrity, but with a wide popualr resonance. He later wrote Songoro cosongo; poemas mulatos, a book of remarkable artistic significance and with a reflexive vocation on the Cuban culture; West Indies, Ltd; Cantos para soldados y sones para turistas; he also published in Mexico his poem Spain and Poema en cuatro angustias y una esperanza. He participated in the 2th International Congress of Writers for the Defense of the Culture in Spain. He founded the cultural magazine Gaceta del Caribe, with Jose Antonio Portuondo, Mirta Aguirre, and Angel Augier. He published in Buenos Aires El son entero, he later published his Elegia a Jesus Menendez, in tribute to the Cuban worker leader. He wrote Coplas de Juan Descalzo and he published Elegia cubana. In 1954 he received the Lenin de la Paz prize. In 1961 a congress was carried out in Havana and the Union of Writers and Artistas of Cuba (UNEAC) was created, and he became its Chairman, charge he occupied until he died. In 1962 he published Prosa de prisa, a compilation of his journalist texts, chronicles and comments. In 1967 he published El gran zoo; in 1969 Cuatro canciones para el Che and in 1972 La rueda dentada and Diario que a diario. He died on July, 17th 1989.
