The Havana International Book Fair, to be held from the 13 of February until the 9 of March and in which will take part every Cuban entity linked with the publication world, authors, editors, distributors, booksellers, literary agents, multimedia producers, journalist and other professionals. Also in February will be held, from the 14 until the 17, the "Jazz Plaza" International Festival. Important and famous Jazz figures, among whose will be the Maestro Chucho Valdes, will show their talent and virtuosity, while the public will be able also to see groups, soloist and colloquiums about that genre. On the other hand, from the 26 of February until the 2 of March will be held the National Exhibition of New Producers, an event that will stimulate the knowledge and reflection about the audiovisual work of the young people, who will take part in photographic exhibitions, classes given by personalities of the Cuban cinema, dialogues between different generations and workshops.

And as Lettres de Cuba is also a monthly cultural event, we offer our readers a variety of very interesting texts with a select number of artistic images.

The Reencuentros section invites the reader to enjoy two texts. The first one is from one of the first numbers of the Cine cubano magazine in the sixties. Alfredo Guevara reflected the visit to our country of the French actor Gerard Philipe, who established the contact of a group of Cuban intellectuals with world personalities, such as Simone de Beauvoir, Claude Faux, María Casares, Jean Paul Sartre, Sacha Vierny and Alain Resnais. In the second text Rufino del Valle, president of the Cuban Fund of Photographic Image, describes the experiences of the Spanish poet and dramatist Federico García Lorca in our country. Testimonial pictures can be seen in the Galeria section of this number.

The usual section Entrevista (Interview) is made by the French journalist Michel Porcheron to the poet and essay writer Victor Cassaus, who is also founder - director of the Pablio de la Torriente Brau Cultural Centre. Letras, is also offering tow works from exceptionally Cuban writers. Written by the poet Roberto Fernández Retamar we are offering the essay Todavia Marti (Still Marti), from his book Caliban, and an extract of the novel La situacion (The situation), written by the recently deceased writer Lisandro Otero.

Los Tesoros brings two works: a story aboyut the name of our country, written by the researcher Sergio Valdes Bernal and a tribute to the 190 anniversary of the San Alejandro visual arts academy, by the artists Jorge Luis Aguilar. The later work is completed in Galeria with singular historic images of the institution.

On the other hand, Carlos Alberto Mas Zabala, author of important texts such as "José Martí, del antiesclavismo a la integración racial" (Jose Marti, from slavery to racial integration), emphasizes in the section Artes the importance for our country of the International Book Fair. Also in this section, journalist Rafael Lam will take us in a tour through Europe together with the Cuban group Lecuona Cuban Boys.

Leer a Marti proposes from the Versos Sencillos collection of the Hero "Mantilla andaluza" and "Bien, yo respeto" and the Versos Libres, written between 1878 and 1882, an undeniable evidence of originality and greatness of the Cuban universal politician, journalist and poet.

The number is illustrated by Agustín Calviño (Gólgota), one of the most important artists of the Cuban contemporary plastic, who is graduated from the National Academy of Arts. This visual artist, whose works are characterized by a magic game of lights and shadows, is also a painting and drawing professor at the Experimental Center of Visual Arts.

Dear readers, you have then in your hands a varied selection of texts of unquestionably quality and particular style, accompanied by beautiful aesthetic images that invite you to completely enjoy our magazine. We hope the good taste will last until the arrival of the surprises of the next number.


(CUBARTE)