MADRID, Spain.- Cuban writers Félix Anesio and Abel Sierra Madero received the Florida Book Awards in the Spanish Language category. Anesio won the gold medal for his eighth collection of poems, congregations, Edited by the Chilean publishing house Casa Bukowski. While Sierra Madero deserved the silver award for The body never forgets: Forced labor, the new man and memory in Cuba (1959-1980), on the forced labor camps of the Military Production Aid Units (UMAP).
Guantanamo Félix Anesio, who lives in Miami, explained to The New Herald that this book “gathers more than 70 poems and epigrams on different topics: existential anguish, love, death, family, illness, exodus, contemplation of beauty, in short, life in all its aspects” .
Anesio, who came to the United States in 2000, worked as an engineer in Cuba for 25 years. He currently alternates writing with managing a Ralph Lauren store.
For his part, Sierra Madera explained to the aforementioned outlet that the guiding thread of the story for which he has received this award “are the Military Production Aid Units, the name by which hundreds of forced labor camps were known that the Cuban regime installed between 1965 and 1968 under the cover of the Compulsory Military Service Law”.
He also explained that he began interviewing ex-inmates when he was still living in Cuba.
“I realized that on the Island it would have been impossible to develop a project of this magnitude for various reasons. One of them has to do with the control that the regime has over archives and libraries. On the other hand, the fear that many of those who suffered the rigors of that traumatic experience still have. Despite the fact that a long time has passed, there are witnesses who do not want to speak, ”she pointed out.
Sierra Madero, born in Matanzas in 1976, immigrated to Miami in 1992. The writer said this Thursday from his social networks feel “very happy” about the recent award.
This award is coordinated by the Florida State University Libraries at Tallahasse, and recognizes the best books written in Florida annually.
The first edition of the Florida Book Awards in Spanish was won by the Cuban writer Daina Chavianoin 2006, with his novel The island of infinite loves.
