Alejo Carpentier y Valmont was a Cuban novelist, essayist, and musicologist who greatly influenced Latin American literature during its famous "boom" period. Born in Lausanne, Switzerland, of French and Russian parentage, Carpentier grew up in Havana, Cuba, and despite his European birthplace, he strongly identified as Cuban throughout his life. He traveled extensively, particularly in France, and to South America and Mexico, where he met prominent members of the Latin American cultural and artistic community. Carpentier took a keen interest in Latin American politics and often aligned himself with revolutionary movements, such as Fidel Castro's Communist Revolution in Cuba in the mid-20th century. Carpentier was jailed and exiled for his leftist political philosophies.
Dulce María Loynaz Muñoz was a Cuban poet, and is considered one of the principal figures of Cuban literature. She was awarded the Miguel de Cervantes Prize in 1992. She earned her Doctorate in Civil Law at University of Havana in 1927.
Carlos Ruiz Zafón was a Spanish novelist known for his 2001 novel La sombra del viento. The novel sold 15 million copies and was winner of numerous awards; it was included in the list of the one hundred best books in Spanish in the last twenty-five years, made in 2007 by eighty-one Latin American and Spanish writers and critics.
Pedro Juan Gutiérrez is a Cuban novelist.
Finca Vigía is a house in San Francisco de Paula Ward in Havana, Cuba which was once the residence of Ernest Hemingway. Like Hemingway's Key West home, it is now a museum. The building was constructed in 1886.
Paco Ignacio Taibo II, also known as Paco Taibo II or informally as PIT is a Spanish-Mexican writer, novelist and political activist based in Mexico City. He is most widely known as the founder of the neopolicial genre of novel in Latin America and is also a prominent member of the international crime writing community. His Spanish language work has won numerous awards including two Latin American Dashiell Hammett Prizes. In 2018, Taibo was appointed as head of the Fondo de Cultura Económica by President Andrés Manuel López Obrador.
Nancy Morejón is a Cuban poet, critic, and essayist. She was a recipient of the Struga Poetry Evenings Golden Wreath Award. She has been called "the best known and most widely translated woman poet of post-revolutionary Cuba".
Hernán Elizondo Arce is a Costa Rican novelist and poet.
Enrique Vila-Matas is a Spanish author. He has authored several award-winning books that mix genres and has been branded as one of the most original and prominent writers in the Spanish language.
Wendy Guerra, formally Wendy Guerra Torres, is a Cuban poet and novelist, based in Miami.
Cecilia Valdés is both a novel by the Cuban writer Cirilo Villaverde (1812–1894), and a zarzuela based on the novel. It is a work of importance for its quality, and its revelation of the interaction of classes and races in Havana, Cuba.
Jorge Perugorría Rodríguez is a Cuban actor, film director and painter. He is well known for his part as Diego in Strawberry and Chocolate (original title in Spanish Fresa y chocolate. He recently acted in Steven Soderbergh's Che, with Benicio del Toro and in the original Netflix series Four Seasons in Havana. He lives in Santa Fe, a neighborhood on the outskirts of Havana, with his wife Elsa Maria Fuentes de La Paz and their four children.
The Hotel Ambos Mundos is a hotel in Havana, Cuba. Built with a square form with five floors, it has an eclectic set of characteristics of 20th-century style architecture. It was built in 1924 on a site that previously had been occupied by an old family house on the corner of Calle Obispo and Mercaderes in Old Havana. It is a frequent tourist destination because it was home to the popular writer Ernest Hemingway for seven years in the 1930s.
Peter R. Bush is an English literary translator. He has translated works from Catalan, French, Spanish and Portuguese to English, including the work of Josep Pla, Joan Sales and Merce Rodoreda.
National Prize for Literature is the national literature prize of Cuba. It has been given annually since 1983 and recognizes those writers who have enriched the legacy of Cuban literature. It has been called "the most important award of its kind" in Cuba.
Alberto Yarini y Ponce de León was a Cuban racketeer and pimp during the period of the Cuban War of Independence against Spain. Yarini was well known in his time, is Cuba's most famous pimp, and came to symbolize the concept of Cubanidad, the Cuban national identity, to many Cubans, long after his death.
Roberto Valero was a Cuban poet, novelist, and educator.
Gerardo Fernandez Fe is a Cuban novelist and essayist. His best-known works are the novels La Falacia (1999) and El último día del estornino (2011) and the books of essays Cuerpo a diario (2007) and Notas al total (2015).
The Man who Loved Dogs is a novel by Leonardo Padura and involves the complex political narratives that surround the assassination of Leon Trotsky by Ramon Mercader. The novel was a finalist for the Book of the Year Award in Spain. It was originally published in 2009 by Tusquets Editors, Spain. It has been translated into English by Anna Kushner. The english translation was published in the U.S. in 2014 by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Padura’s novel traces the saga of Trotsky’s 11-year flight from Stalin; the recruitment and creation of an assassin in the form of Catalan communist Ramón Mercader; and the marginalization of Iván Cárdenas Maturell, a Cuban novelist who learns early in his career the hazards of writing in his homeland.
Four Seasons in Havana was a four-part 2016 Spanish-language web television series on Netflix. It is based on the books “The Havana Quartet” written by Cuban novelist Leonardo Padura Fuentes. The premise revolves around lieutenant Mario Conde and his partner Sgt. Manolo Palacios, as they solve crime in the heart of Cuba’s capital Havana.
