The Cuban playwright, professor and poet, Matías Montes Huidobro, died early this Friday, May 6, at the Kendall Regional Hospital in Miami, United States, after suffering a stroke.
He recently turned 91 years old and “remained active and creative until his last days, especially after the death of his wife last year, the intellectual and muse Yara González Montes”, publishes The Americas Newspaper.
The Cuban essayist was born in Sagua la Grande, in the province of Villa Clara, in April 1931, and studied high school at Institute No. 1 in Havana and later obtained a doctorate in pedagogy at the university in the Cuban capital.
He was part of the editorial staff of the newspaper Revolution and according The New Heraldin 1951 he began as a poet and columnist with publications in the magazines Bohemia, posters Y Revolution Monday. He was also a journalism school teacher before leaving Cuba.
At the time of his death, Montes Huidobro was working on a novel that he had started even when he was in Cuba
The first poem he published was The cow with the long eyes and his first story the ninth son. Some of his early dramatic works were the harassed, Gas in the pores, the jar, The backfire Y Cows.
He left the Island in November 1961 and in Pennsylvania, USA, he was a high school teacher; he later moved to Hawaii with his wife and worked as a professor at the University of Hawaii until retiring in 1997, then settled in Miami until his last days.
Other of his great works premiered in the United States are The Mother and the Guillotinebrought to the scene. Exilea finalist in the 1987 Letras de Oro contest and also staged in 1988 and 1996.
He received the Prometheus Award as a playwright for his work on the same rocks and the Café Gijón Award for that source of pain, concert for the deaf Y birth in the cosmos.
The librarian of the Cuban collection at the University of Miami, Lesbia de Varona, told Diario Las Américas that Montes Huidobro was working on two novels at the time of her death. One started in 1950, when he was still in Cuba, and had not finished.
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