The compilation of interviews with glories of Cuban sports presented this Thursday by journalist Joel García León with Editorial Pablo de la Torriente Brau has a special value for Cuba Si, since several of those texts were born on our page.
Until the University of Physical Culture and Sport “Manuel Fajardo”, we came to know details about this interesting volume. There we talked with Joel:
How many years of journalism are in this book?
“I think there are about 20 years of journalism in one way or another. Many of these interviews were published for the first time in CubaSi, then they also came to light on sites like Cubadebate, Cubahora… and I, at the proposal of the publisher, I compiled all those texts, we adapted them so that they would not lose their validity, that they would be personality interviews. We also tried to make it as creative a book as possible, that no interview would resemble another, so that people could also enjoy it …
“I don’t like to mark any specific interview, because each one has its story, there are interviews like Yoanka’s, which is through some parrots, Erick López’s, which is through his son, a literary interview with Pipian and, above all, everything, I like to put it that way, there are four interviews, which were the last that Pedro Pérez Dueñas, Conrado Marrero, Luisita Quintero and Antonio Ñico Jiménez gave in their lives, which I think is a tribute to them who are no longer here, to their families, to the Cuban sports movement”.
What is the common thread of this selection?
“The common thread is, first, to tell their stories and then to tell them complacently, if not with all the level of tears, sadness, joy, also dissatisfaction. Athletes, sometimes, when they retire, remember those bad moments, those occasions in which they were treated unfairly, either by their authorities or by the press itself, that we have also made mistakes in the treatment of sports figures, so the common thread was that, to show the figures as is, that’s why it’s called Heart Medals”.
How does it feel to see your book already made, even reaching some of its protagonists?
“This is already my third book and I think that each one is a birth and not forced. It is a pact to think about the other book, in fact today sports glories came that are not in this book, but they will be, well, my idea, With the support of the publisher, it is a second edition, because there are still glories like Anglada, like Ana Fidelia Quirós, Lupetey… among other figures that are not in this book because we made a selection so that the greatest number of sports were represented” .
Other projects?
“I am also working on a book about Javier Méndez, which takes up a little more time, because it is a more literary genre…”
