MIAMI, United States. – Fine García Marruz highlighted Cuban poetry in all its splendor, not only in its poetic facet, but also in its essay, critical and investigative work. With a career that spanned decades, the writer became a benchmark in the Latin American literary field.
García Marruz published her first book of poems at the beginning of the 40s and was part, together with her husband Cintio Vitier, of the group of the magazine origins (1944-1956), founded by Jose Lezama Lima. His link with literature extended through family ties, since his brother-in-law, the poet Eliseo Diego, was considered by Gabriel García Márquez as “one of the greatest in the Castilian language”.
In addition, in her facet as an essayist, Fina collaborated closely with her husband, together publishing fundamental volumes for the study of Latin American letters.
Born in Havana, from an early age she felt an inclination for the Marti universe, which led her to dedicate herself to the study of José Martí. Throughout her life, García Marruz was awarded prestigious prizes, such as the National Prize for Literature in 1990, the Pablo Neruda Ibero-American Poetry Prize in 2007, and the Reina Sofía Prize for Ibero-American Poetry in 2011.
Her work has been translated into several languages and is part of numerous anthologies, which consolidated her as one of the most prominent figures in Latin American poetry.
Here we share three of his poems:
A sweet snow is falling
A sweet snow is falling
behind every thing, every lover,
a sweet snowfall understanding
what life has of distance.
A slow diamond monologue
shut up behind what I’m saying,
an actor repeating his role badly
without end, in gesticulating solitude.
***
of what silence are you silence
Of what silence are you silence?
What voice, what cry, who answers?
Abyss of blue, what are we doing in your bosom,
children of the word as we are?
What have you to do, say, with us?
How if you are a stranger, so you tempt us?
Would there be thirst if there was no certain water?
Or who clothed my eyes with pity?
Can I possess, small, immense gift
that the heavens and the waters lacked?
And he could die, surviving
Less than him, all the brilliance of heaven,
to the fire that, radiating, has the tender light indifferent?
***
And yet I know that it is darkness
the lights of the home to which I cling,
I hold on to a screen, to a deep iron
and yet I know that it is darkness.
Because I have seen a beach that I do not forget,
my mother’s hand, the interior of a car,
I understand the meanings of the night
because I have seen a beach that I do not forget.
When suddenly the world gives that different accent,
acquires an external intimacy that surprises me,
He hides without keeping quiet, without speaking he reveals himself,
I understand that it is the extinct heart
of those days stained with coming tremor
the reason for my passage on earth.
