Primary Sources: Cuban Culture and Cultural Relations, 1959-, Part 2: Writers

The Library has acquired the second part of the “vertical archive” of Casa de las Americas. This collection of unpublished manuscripts, letters, notes, and other ephemera, offers a unique insight into the activities of more than a thousand writers and artists who visited La Casa.  Famous writers from the twentieth century form the core of the collection, including Jorge Amado, Mario Benedetti, Roberto Bolaño, María Luisa Bombal, Jorge Luis Borges, Alejo Carpentier, Aimé Césaire, Julio Cortázar, Roque Dalton and Gabriel García Márquez, to name but a few. Some of the leading writers from the nineteenth century are also represented, including José Martí and the pioneer Brazilian novelist Machado de Assis. In addition to writers, the archive includes files on painters, such as Roberto Matta and David Alfaro Siqueiros, filmmakers, such as Santiago Álvarez and Glauber Rocha, and musicians, such as Chilean singer-songwriter and political activist Víctor Jara.