MIAMI, United States. – The PEN Club of Cuban Writers in Exile calls for the launch of the novel How long the summer lasts (Alexandria Library, 2024), by author Rolando Morelli, which will take place on December 14 in the auditorium of the Westchester Regional Library, Miami, at 3:00 in the afternoon.
According to the editorial note released with the call, How long the summer lasts It is set in the context of the Liberal Triennium (1820-1823), a period of Spanish history that is little known and “barely studied by Cuban historians.” This period, the editorial points out, “had, as was natural, its effects and consequences on the then colony of Cuba.”
The work intertwines fictional characters with historical figures such as the priest, thinker, teacher, author, politician and violinist. Felix Varela and Moralesthe “influential” Bishop Espada and the poet, essayist, editor and narrator Jose Maria Heredia.
The editorial highlights that “in this framework, vast, complex and complicated alike,” the tensions of a crucial moment are reflected, when “Cuban society was about to decisively shake off the chains of servitude.” The note suggests that “reading this novel constitutes a prerequisite for thinking about the mechanisms that moved Cuban society at a certain moment” and warns about the parallels between that historical past and “the present day subjected and shackled under Castroism and its desire for continuity.”
Rolando Morelli, born in 1953 and resident in Cuba until 1980, was part of the Mariel exodus. The professor and writer, settled in the United States, “managed to rebuild his life, finish higher education, and dedicate himself simultaneously to university teaching and literary creation.” Subsequently, “the demands and coercion of a political nature exercised by the political police of the Castro regime” again interrupted contact with his family on the island.
Among Morelli’s publications are Argentine stories from Cuba for a Spanish editor, A coffee from time to time and One look covers little. In addition, he has presented his work in different international settings, including the Maison de l’Amérique Latine, in Paris, with his novel Stories they never told us (2022).
Morelli directs the “Dossier” / “Monographic Notebooks” series for the La gota de agua label.
