The jury unanimously voted for a work that criticizes US immigration policy towards Cuba.
14ymedio, Havana, April 25, 2026 — The Casa de las Américas 2026 Prize in the Historical-Social Essay category was awarded yesterday, Friday, to Cuban researcher Rodney Amaury González Maestrey – a diplomat from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs – for his book Chronicle of a Crisis Foretold: The Migration Policy of the United States towards Cuba (1960-2024).
On receiving the award, the author explained that his essay seeks to be “an instrument for the redemption of many divided families, shattered dreams, lives literally drowned” by what he described as a policy aimed at “drowning, truncating, dividing and discrediting.”
From the Cuban Foreign Ministry’s profile, the award was celebrated with an official publication, in which the ministry describes the award as an “achievement that transcends the individual and honors all of Cuban revolutionary diplomacy,” and highlights this result “as an expression of the capacity of our cadres to defend, also through reflection and research, the just causes of our people.”
The award highlighted that the text “provides a comprehensive and careful historical overview, whose temporal coverage provides key elements for critical thinking” on the characteristics of migratory flows.
The ministry describes the award as an “achievement that transcends the individual and honors all of Cuban revolutionary diplomacy.”
The jury – made up of Paula Klachko (Argentina), Darío Salinas Figueredo (Mexico) and Marlene Vázquez Pérez (Cuba) – has had to meet virtually due to the energy crisis on the Island and has not been able to meet in Havana, as has been the tradition in previous editions, with the sole exception of the period of the covid-19 pandemic.
Abel Prieto, former Minister of Culture and current president of Casa de las Américas, also celebrated the news with a brief post, in which he mentions that the award-winning essay addresses more than six decades of migration policy from the administration of Dwight Eisenhower to that of Donald Trump.
The award-winning author expressed his gratitude for the award on his social media and acknowledged “the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the US General Directorate for having entrusted me with the responsibility of studying the complex migratory relations between Cuba and the US between 2015 and 2018.”
Meanwhile, the Testimonial Literature Prize was awarded to Salvadoran author Carlos Santos for Dr. Muerte: Confesiones (Dr. Death: Confessions ), a work focused on the assassination of Bishop Óscar Arnulfo Romero. The jury described it as a “sustained investigation” that reveals the meaning of paramilitary violence in El Salvador. The jury’s decision highlighted the work as a denunciation written in solid and precise language “that goes straight to the heart of the complexities of the human psyche and heart, without embellishment or sugarcoating.”
The jury members also awarded a mention in the testimonial genre to the book El laberinto de la mariposa [The Butterfly Labyrinth], by the Ecuadorian Juan Pablo Castro.
Founded in 1959, Casa de las Américas became one of the main instruments of cultural projection of the Cuban State in Latin America
Founded in 1959, Casa de las Américas became one of the Cuban state’s main instruments for cultural outreach in Latin America. Its literary prize gained prestige by recognizing important authors from the continent, but always within an ideological sphere close to the regime.
Throughout its history, the institution has combined a genuine effort to promote culture with a political function of legitimizing, from the intellectual field, the narratives of the Cuban government and consolidating a network of affinities with writers and intellectuals aligned – or at least not in confrontation – with the government.
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