FAMINE & FEAST IN CUBA by Judy Navas

One evening late this past November, Alejandro accompanies writer Carlos Victoria, the book fair committee’s Alejandro Rios, and some other friends to the airport. Eventually they find the hidden third-floor gate where charter flights from Cuba arrive. Antonio Jose Ponte is standing in the middle of the lounge with a small bag, blinking in the fluorescent light.

A birdlike 33-year-old man with large green eyes and a salt-and-pepper buzzcut, his face is thin and drawn, and his tee Ath look huge when he smiles at the approaching strangers.The prize-winning Cuban author has been invited by the book fair to read from Las Comidas Profundas, published by Baralanube earlier this year. The six-chapter essay places the material deprivation in contemporary Cuba within a historical context and contemplates the Cuban people’s passionate relationship to food since the time of the conquistadors.At his reading a few days later, Ponte is paired with Eliseo Alberto Diego, a well-known Cuban writer who lives in Mexico. The room at Miami-Dade Community College fills up with an audience that includes elderly men in guayaberas and college students, some of whom have never heard of Ponte but are curious to hear a writer from Cuba.At his reading a few days later, Ponte is paired with Eliseo Alberto Diego, a well-known Cuban writer who lives in Mexico. The room at Miami-Dade Community College fills up with an audience that includes elderly men in guayaberas and college students, some of whom have never heard of Ponte but are curious to hear a writer from Cuba.

Ponte is a lively raconteur. He reads an anecdote from the book about black-market sandwich vendors in Havana who, during the “special period” in the early Nineties, breaded and fried strips of rags and passed them off as beef cutlets to their desperate customers. Their disbelief suspended by starvation, they ate the sandwiches with gusto. As the writer recounts the story -- at once hilariously absurd and tragic -- laughter erupts in the crowd. Ponte’s words have a different effect on a thirtyish man and woman near the front of the room. They seem familiar with the tale and weep silently as he reads.

Las Comidas Profundas has not been published in Cuba. Ponte originally proposed writing the essay in 1995 for a special issue of a Cuban magazine on areas of Cuban culture: food, architecture, baseball. Because of financial difficulties, the issue never ran.Alejandro began corresponding with Ponte after reading a book of his poetry two years ago. Ponte sent a sample chapter of Las Comidas Profundas to the painter/editor. Alejandro, whose canvases are filled with food imagery, was mightily impressed and urged Ponte to keep on writing.During the question and answer session after the reading, Diaz gets up. “What audience are you writing for when you know your book will be published abroad and might even be prohibited in Cuba?” he asks.Ponte responds without hesitation. “The diaspora.”This is Ponte’s first trip to the United States, although he has traveled to Europe and Latin America. He says Miami was pretty much what he expected, “the historic reversal of Havana.” He has been surprised at the obesity of some of the people he’s seen -- he calls them “walking Boteros” -- but also, pleasantly, at finding as many kindred souls here as in Havana with whom he can talk about writing, and the arts in general.Chief among them is Alejandro, who has offered Ponte a bed in one of his sons’ rooms for the duration of his stay. One evening about a week after the book fair, Alejandro goes out to buy a barbecued chicken for dinner.When he returns, Ponte starts to say something, then laughs. “I almost asked a very Cuban question,” he explains. “I was going to ask you if you were able to find anything to eat.”Since his arrival in Miami, Ponte appears to have grown into his skin. His face has fleshed out, and he’s even started to worry a little about getting fat. In a few days, he’ll return to Havana.He hasn’t even considered staying. Ponte lives with his mother in a comfortable house in Old Havana, where or pressures. He really has nothing else to do. He says that for now, his occasional trips abroad have given him as much of a taste of fast-paced consumer lifestyle as he wants. “I think we have to leave the idea behind that you have to either stay here or there,” he says. “Wherever I am, I’m a writer.”On a balmy evening this last Novemeber in Havana, we sat down with this prize winning author who’s been a barometer of Cuban society for over fifty years.Antonio José Ponte is the most accomplished writer of the generation born in Cuba after the 1959 revolution.

 

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