The justice and liberty that the dictator Raúl Castro Ruz snatched from our dear Ángel Santiesteban-Prats, couldn’t stop him continuing to be a great man who is adored by his true friends, not abandoned for a moment, not him, the brilliant writer, prize winner within and beyond the island, to the pain and envy of many colleagues who, having been his friends turned against him when so ordered to and all that just for the crumbs of stale bread and some false professional recognitions.
Today, all these UNEAC colleagues, especially those eight brazen writers , who are signatories against gender violence, which used to Angel as the emblem of an abusive violent man, who celebrate every day the brutal repression against the Ladies in White, and are silent this week – sure why not – about the brutal beating of the actress Ana Luisa Rubio by dictator Castro’s political police disguised as “neighbors”. Today, them, all of them and the dictator of course, will receive the news with deep anger which will delight the majority, that is to say, all the good people who love freedom, justice, democracy, human rights , art, literature:
Ángel Santiesteban-Prats has just won the International Franz Kafka prize which convened in the Czech Republic.
Tomorrow, Friday, at 7.30pm, in the Cervantes Institute of Berlin, three Cuban writers: José Manuel Prieto, Jorge Luis Arzola and Amir Valle, moderated by the German editor Michi Strausfeld, will speak about such important themes as liberty and creation in Cuba.
Starting from the injustice perpetrated against Ángel Santiesteban Prats, who is currently serving a prison sentence on the island where he was wrongfully convicted in a trial which was rigged to prevent further denouncing the plight of Cubans in his blog “The Children Nobody Wanted”, the writers will also speak about other developments of intellectual repression.
And as a novelty, they will present the novel ” The Summer When God Was Sleeping”. A novel which deals with the theme of the boat people with which Ángel Santiesteban was the winner of the International Franz Kafka Novels from the Drawer Prize, which convened in the Czech Republic.
Hopefully, all those who are in Berlin can join us!!!
Amir Valle, writer and journalist, literary agent of Ángel Santiesteban-Prats
The Editor
Translated by Shane J. Cassidy
12 September 2013
