WHEN RED BECAME GREY: CUBAN REVOLUTION, INTELLECTUALS AND LITERATURE

Abstract

Assuming 1968 as a turning point that anticipates the hardening of the cultural policy of the Cuban revolution, this article has two aims. On the one hand, to reconstruct the social conditions of production of symbolic practices between 1968-1971. These conditions were basically the result of the normative frameworks dictated by the cultural institutions (the Union of Cuban Writers and Artists, the declarations emanating from the Congresses of 1968 and 1971) as well as from the practices of the state officials of these institutions (for example, of their way of understanding which works deserved to be awarded prizes or expelled from the literate city). On the other hand, we are interested in seeing how these conditions regulating symbolic production were challenged by and in two literary works hidden by their authors in which the unspeakable is said. These texts are Una caja de zapatos vacía (1968), by Virgilio Piñera, and El central (fundación) (1970), by Reinaldo Arenas. From the methodological point of view, the analysis is based on the sociology of culture and literary criticism.