A reading of Tras los rostros, the book of poems by Orlando Rossardi inspired by artist Juan Abreu’s groundbreaking portraits of Cuban political prisoners, first exhibited in 2017 at the European Parliament in Brussels in commemoration of the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights Day. With an introduction by human rights activist María Werlau.
This literature, history, and art event is part of our CreateNYC Language Access Cuban History and Literature Series, and it will be held in Spanish, followed by a bilingual Q&A.
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[Pictured above: A selection of some of the faces depicted by Juan Abreu. All are oil on canvas, 27 x 35 cms.]
Orlando Rossardi (pseudonym of Orlando Rodríguez Sardiñas) was born in Havana in 1938. He left the island in 1960, and has since been living in Spain and in the United States. He obtained a Ph.D. at the University of Texas, Austin, and taught at the University of New Hampshire, Wisconsin and Miami Dade College in Florida. He has published several books of poems, including Fundación del centro (2011) and Totalidad (2012). His anthology, La última poesía cubana (1973), is considered by critics the first major work bringing together the Cuban poets both from the island and from exile. Rossardi is a member of the North American Academy of the Spanish Language and Correspondent of the Royal Academy of the Spanish Language in Madrid, Spain. His research contributions can be found in encyclopedias, dictionaries, and literary magazines in Spain and Latin America as well as in the United States.
Writer and artist Juan Abreu (Havana, 1952) has a degree in Fine Arts from the School of Fine Arts of San Alejandro in La Habana, Cuba.
After alternating writing and painting for some time, he now only paints. He has exhibited in the United States, Spain, and Latin America. He has written and published over ten books, including Diosa (Tusquets 2017) and Rebelión en Cantaya (Hypermedia, 2017). His work has been translated into French, German, Italian, and Catalonian. He arrived in the U.S. in 1980 and currently lives in Barcelona, Spain.
María Werlau is co-founder and president of Free Society Project, also known as Cuba Archive/Archivo Cuba, a non-profit think tank incorporated in Washington, D.C. to advance human rights through research and scholarship. Her extensive publications on Cuba cover a wide range of issues. An independent consultant and former Second Vice-President of Chase Manhattan Bank, she has a Bachelor of Science in Foreign Service from Georgetown University and a Master’s in International Affairs from Universidad de Chile. Born in Cuba, she left for the U.S. at the age of eight months with her family.
This presentation is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council.
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