Wendy Guerra
| Wendy Guerra | |
|---|---|
| Born |
11 December 1970 Havana, Cuba |
| Occupation | Writer |
| Language | Spanish |
| Nationality | Cuban |
| Genres | Poetry, novel |
Wendy Guerra (born 11 December 1970), formally Wendy Guerra Torres Gomez de Cadiz, is a Cuban poet and novelist. After a career acting in Cuban film and television, she turned to writing and won recognition more readily in international circles than within Cuba. Her works have been translated into thirteen languages. She has been described as "a kind of diva of contemporary Cuban literature".
Guerra was born on 11 December 1970 in Havana in what she later described as "a small provincial hospital". Her family soon moved to Cienfuegos on Cuba's southern coast. Her mother Albis Torres was an unpublished poet, whom Guerra calls "the unknown poet".
Guerra's first collection of poems, Platea a oscuras, won her a prize from the University of Havana when she was barely 17. She then earned a degree in film, radio and television direction at Havana's Instituto Superior de Arte. During a writing workshop, Gabriel Garcia Marquez read a section of her diary and praised her ability to write dialog. She appeared on Cuba's first morning television show, Buenos Días, where she read children's stories. She worked as an actress on Cuban television and in film, but considers her abilities limited, though she found the experience useful as a student of character and interpretation. Her film credits include Hello Hemingway (1990).
She kept diaries that formed the basis for her first novel, Todos Se Van (Everyone Leaves), which was published in Spain in 2006. The novel follows its young protagonist through childhood and adolescence in Cuba. Reviewing the U.S. edition in 2012 for NPR, Alan Cheuse noted "she describes with a freshness and intensity I haven't read before".
She traveled to Barcelona in 2006 to receive the first Editorial Bruguera prize. Upon returning to Cuba, she was ostracized in professional circles and was removed as the host of her television program. Photocopies of the novel circulated in Cuba and Guerra reported that she was even asked to autograph them. She later said: "The authorities have a problem with my novel, not with me. I do not cause I'm not going to change the world. I write just reality, a testimony of what one can not do, I'm sorry, but it's like that. I am writing so that we can understand Cuba." She added: "Cuba is a pressure cooker whose only valves are artists".
The novel was adapted into the screenplay for a film directed by the Colombian Sergio Cabrera. Cabrera shot the film in Cuba without permission and, though the novel had not been published in Cuba, screened the film at the Havana Film Festival. Guerra described seeing the film:
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