Founded by Cuban revolutionary Haydée Santamaría on April 28, 1959, and currently chaired by writer, Abel Prieto, the Cuban cultural institution researches, promotes, awards, and publishes the work of writers, visual artists, musicians, theater players, and literature students, arts, and social sciences in Latin America and the Caribbean.
Founded just four months after the triumph of the Cuban Revolution, Casa de las Américas is an institution with a legal personality that develops and expands the socio-cultural relations of Cuba with the peoples of Latin America, the Caribbean, and elsewhere.
As part of its cultural integration project, this institution helped prevent the rupture of cultural ties between Cuba and the rest of the region when attempts were being made to isolate Cuba politically and diplomatically from its immediate context.
It is also considered the cradle and home of the Cuban Nueva Trova Movement due to the leading role played by Haydée Santamaría (1922-1980) in promoting its greatest exponents in the genre’s formative years and for her support of the Canción Protesta (Protest Song) in Latin America.
Since then and until 1986, Casa de las Américas was presided by painter Mariano Rodriguez (1912-1990), and from that date to the end of his days, by poet and essayist Roberto Fernandez Retamar (1930-2019).
The activities of the 63rd edition of Casa de las Americas Literary Prize, the oldest in the continent, kicked off Monday, April 24, with 480 works in competition, in addition to book launchings, talks, and meetings with writers.
Works deserving of awards will be in four categories this Friday: Short stories, Testimonial literature, Studies on the black presence in contemporary America and the Caribbean, Brazilian literature, and fiction.
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