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September 6, 2002
Márquez
Receives Major Award in Cuba
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Photo: Fred Leblanc
Roberto
Márquez, William R. Kenan Jr. Professor of Latin
American and Caribbean Studies, poses with the Nicolás
Guillén Centennial Commemorative Medal he received
at a special ceremony in Cuba this summer.
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Scholar of Caribbean
literary and cultural history Roberto Márquez, Mount Holyoke's
William R. Kenan Jr. Professor of Latin American and Caribbean
Studies, journeyed to Havana July 8–13 to participate in
the Conferencia Internacional El Centenario de Nicolás
Guillén (International Centennial Conference on Nicolás
Guillén), which was cosponsored by the Fundación
Nicolás Guillén, the Cuban Ministry of Culture,
the Union of Cuban Artists and Writers (UNEAC), the University
of Havana, and the Instituto Superior de Arte. While in Cuba,
he learned that he would receive a prestigious award from the
Fundación Nicolás Guillén.
The conference and
the creation of the award marked the centennial of the birth of
Nicolás Guillén (1902–1989), Cuba's most important
twentieth-century poet and one of the three (Cesar Vallejo and
Pablo Neruda, being the other two) most important Latin American
poets of his generation. During his visit, Márquez was
awarded the Nicolás Guillén Centennial Commemorative
Medal in recognition of his "outstanding contributions to
the dissemination and knowledge of Guillén's work."
Márquez was one of only nine non-Cuban recipients of the
award.
The medal was presented
at a ceremony held in Havana's renowned Amadeo Roldán Theatre.
During the event, Guillén's poetry was sung and recited
for an audience that included the poet's family and friends, as
well as writers, artists, scholars, and, according to Granma (the
newspaper of the Communist party of Cuba), "the common people
who admire [Guillén's] work." Among the other non-Cuban
recipients of the medal were critic and writer Monica Mansour
of Mexico and Jamaican scholar, translator, and critic Keith Ellis.
Cubans who received the award included literary critic Roberto
Fernandez Retamar, director of the cultural journal Casa de las
Americas; poet Nancy Morejon, author of two major books on Guillén;
anthropologist and documentary novelist Miguel Barnet, director
of the Fernando Ortiz Foundation and author of Estaban Montejo:
The Autobiography of a Runaway Slave; poet Pablo Armando Fernandez;
and essayist and author Cesar Lopez, author of Primer Libro
De La Ciudad, among other books of verse.
During his visit,
Márquez also delivered a paper titled "Guillén
and the Critics" and spoke on the topic of "Challenges,
Creative Demands, and Satisfactions of Literary Translation,"
as part of a roundtable discussion attended by scholars and translators
from Cuba, Jamaica, and Italy. A member of Mount Holyoke's faculty
since 1989, Márquez is recognized for the caliber of his
many translations and his work in the field of Caribbean literary
and cultural history. He has served on the board of directors
of the Massachusetts Foundation for the Humanities and is an associate
editor of the New World Studies Series, published by the University
of Virginia Press.
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