Jorge Olivera Castillo

Last updated
Jorge Olivera Castillo
Born1961 (age 6263)
Havanna, Cuba
OccupationActivist, poet, writer
LanguageSpanish
Genrepoetry
Years active1994-present


Jorge Olivera Castillo (b. Havana, Cuba, 1961) is a Cuban poet and dissident.

Contents

He worked as a journalist for the Cuban state-run television station ICRT for 10 years. [1] He was briefly detained in 1992 for trying to leave the country on a raft; [1] in 1993, he left his position at ICRT and began writing reports for Radio Martí, a U.S.-funded, Miami-based station critical of the Cuban government. [2] [3] With two other journalists, he founded an independent news agency, Havana Press, in 1995, and later became the director. [1]

Olivera Castillo was arrested in 2003 as part of the Black Spring crackdown and sentenced to eighteen years in prison for writing articles "against national independence and Cuba's economy". [4] In prison, he spent nine months in solitary confinement, and suffered from a range of health problems. [3] [1] He began writing poetry and fiction while in prison as a coping mechanism. [3] His wife, Nancy Alfaya, became a member of the Ladies in White, agitating for his release. [5] [3] After international pressure, [6] he was released for health reasons after serving only 18 months of his sentence, but remained under close supervision. [3] [4] He is currently a visiting scholar at Harvard University. [7]

Works

Poetry

, 2010. (Spanish and French)

Short stories

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References

  1. 1 2 3 4 "Journalist Jorge Olivera Castillo released on medical grounds". IFEX. 9 December 2004. Retrieved 3 March 2017.
  2. "Jorge Olivera Castillo (1961)". www.memoryofnations.eu. Retrieved 2024-01-31.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 Mineo, Liz (6 December 2016). "Out of 'the wolf's mouth'". Harvard Gazette. Retrieved 3 March 2017.
  4. 1 2 Olivera Castillo, Jorge. "From Dream to Reality". English PEN. Retrieved 1 February 2017.
  5. "Nancy". Mujeres Coraje (in Spanish). 3 March 2010. Retrieved 3 March 2017.
  6. Congressional Record Proceedings and Debates of the 108th Congress Second Session. Government Printing Office. 1954. p. 8730. ISBN   978-0-16-082001-4.
  7. "Jorge Olivera Castillo". Department of Comparative Literature, Harvard University. Archived from the original on 4 March 2017. Retrieved 3 March 2017.