Cuban Writer Wendy Guerra Honored With France’s Order of Arts and Letters / 14ymedio

The writer Wendy Guerra. (EFE)
The writer Wendy Guerra. (EFE)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Havana, 28 September 2016 – Cuban writer Wendy Guerra has been named an officer of the Order of Arts and Letters by France’s Ministry of Culture. The recognition in one level higher than the Order’s knighthood, which she was awarded in 2010.

“France is my second home and the place where my voice resonates with great force despite the silence I suffer on my beloved island of Cuba,” said the novelist in her Facebook account.

Guerra is the author of several novels, including Todos se van (Everyone Leaves), 2006; Nunca fui Primera Dama (I was never First Lady), 2008; Posar desnuda en La Habana (Posing Naked in Havana), 2010 – an apocryphal diary of Anais Nin – Negra (Black Woman), 2013; and her most recent, Domingo de Revolución (Revolution Sunday).

Upon receiving news of the award, the novelist thanked her “readers, editors, translators, critics and colleagues” in France, a nation which she described as “wonderful, cultured, passionate.”

Among the Cubans who have previously received the Order of Arts and Letters, are the poet and essayist Nancy Morejon, Cuba’s Minister of Culture Abel Prieto, the writer Zoe Valdes and the novelist Leonardo Padura.