BY CATHARINA TIRSÉN
STOCKHOLM, Sweden - "Out of the crisis in 1991-93, new ideas were born," explained Francisco López Sacha, president of the Cuban Writers' Union, at a public meeting here April 4. "Together with publishers in Argentina, books by previously unpublished Cuban authors were produced. With international support, for example from Spain, cultural magazines that had stopped publication could resume. We saw more cultural exchange internationally, more international contacts between authors and artists and publishers."

López Sacha and Norberto Codina toured several cities in Sweden before and after participating in the March 31 - April 2 World Conference on Culture. Codina is the editor of La Gaceta de Cuba, the cultural magazine published by the Union of Writers and Artists of Cuba (UNEAC), which the Writers' Union is affiliated to.

At a meeting organized by Casa Latina on March 23, López Sacha explained how the writers' union and others in Cuba organized readings of poetry, short stories, and novels for authors who could not be published because of lack of ink and paper in the early 1990s, following the collapse in favorable trade with the Soviet Union. "In that way, writers could still maintain contact with their audience."

"When the economy started to recover, local publishing houses were founded, publishing books for readers locally and nationally. Six or seven such new publishing houses have been founded since 1993. The situation now means more books are published again. There are still fewer copies than before 1990, but they are read by more people."

The World Conference on Culture was organized by the Swedish Joint Committee for Artistic and Literary Professionals (KLYS), as a parallel conference to a United Nations conference on culture. It brought together more than 80 authors and artists from 35 countries.

Under the point on Culture in Areas of Conflict, López Sacha presented a paper titled "Used Paper Writers." In it he described the lack of paper that every Cuban writer has to cope with. But, as López Sacha noted, "Cuban literature has demonstrated that art and masterpieces are possible even in the midst of the most difficult conditions inside a country: war, blockade, economical crises, or lack of paper.... We have a true literary art, a quality boom in short stories, in novels, poetry, and in drama, a fabulous tradition and the demand of an educated reading public that understands and moves us forward.... We are not suffering and we are not going to suffer the sadness that John Lennon describes in the lyrics of the unforgettable song [Paperback Writer]: the pain of the artist obliged to sell, to mutilate or to remake his work in order to satisfy the requirements of those who pay the money."

During their tour in Sweden, López Sacha and Codina spoke at public meetings organized by the Sweden-Cuba Friendship Association in Gothenburg, Sundsvall, Norrkoping, Uppsala and Stockholm, as well as the university in Gothenburg. Codina also made a brief visit to Iceland.

REYKJAVIK, Iceland - "In Cuba the freedom of expression is greater than it is said to be in other countries, but less than writers and artists would like. The role of artists and writers is not to change society or to deliver absolute truth or to answer all questions, but to take the pulse of society and ask questions about everything," said Norberto Codina, editor of La Gaceta de Cuba, at a public meeting here March 28. The meeting was hosted by Iceland- Cuba Friendship Society.

Codina had just explained that in the 1970s many writers and artists were marginalized because dogmatic attitudes triumphed in literature. This began to change in the 1980s. "When the famous crisis came" he said, and trade relations with Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union collapsed, the economic impact affected culture and literature as well. In 1989, 50 million copies of the cheapest books in the world had been produced, Codina said, but in 1992 less than 1 million. La Gaceta did not come out for more than a year. At the same time there was a cultural boom. Today "Cuban artists hope to continue to advance and reach new freedom, fighting taboos against certain themes."

During his three-day visit to Iceland, Codina read his poetry and discussed culture and life in Cuba with close to 200 people. He was warmly received by about 60 students and professors at the Spanish Faculty at University of Iceland in Reykjavik. Here a big portion of the discussion centered around questions on relationship between culture and Black tradition in Cuba. Codina stated that in the United States Afro-American culture is a specific cultural sector, "but in Cuba it is a component of society." Codina commented, "I do not consider American movies where the chief of police is Black to be Black culture." Answering a question on women in Cuban literature, Codina responded in a similar way as to another question on whether there are laws against gays. He noted that many people in the Nordic countries seemed to think these questions can be resolved simply by law. In Cuba there are several law defending the right of women and no law against gays. But the question of overcoming centuries of oppression and discrimination is not simply a legal. Women in Cuba, he said, are fighting to advance as part of the Cuban revolution, including in the field of literature. He proudly said that last year a woman received a very important literature prize.

Codina was invited by the Iceland-Cuba Friendship Society, and his tour was financially supported by the Mál & Menning publishing house, the country's main publisher of Spanish literature translated into Icelandic. Codina was well received as he read poetry at the publisher's Café, where the six copies of La Gaceta that were available sold out in less than five minutes.

Sigurdur J. Haraldsson, a Young Socialists member in Reykjavik, contributed to this article.  
 
 
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