Luis Pavón, the Forgotten Official / POLEMICA: The 2007 Intellectual Debate, Alejandro Armengol

Luis Pavón in 1971. (Courtesy of the personal archive of Hamlet Lavastida.)
Luis Pavón in 1971. (Courtesy of the personal archive of Hamlet Lavastida.)

It’s not that Luis Pavón died without fanfare, it’s that he died officially forgotten. No one mentioned his death in the official Cuban press, no brief note, not even a moment on the cable news agency to record the fact. Another of the ironies of fate, history and politics — rhetoric doesn’t matter here — has been that there has been more comment from the exile, or at least mentions, of the end of someone who, with good reason, was considered and has always been considered a bastard. That he no longer exist does nothing to change that opinion. At least it’s consistent.

Pavón, was the director of the magazine Verde Olive (Olive Green). He was also the apparent author of a few texts under the name Leopoldo Avila — works that have also been attributed to José Antonio Portuondo, another mediocre Stalinist — which served to unleash terror in writers and artists at a time when dogmatism, mediocrity and foolishness was being imposed on much of Cuban literature. Without event becoming a kind of tropical Marat or Robespierre — not for lack of vocation, simply for lack of opportunities — this mediocre poet relentlessly tried to ruin the lives of various creators. He would get better at it during his presidency of the National Council of Culture between 1971 and 1976, when he could fully exercise his vocation as censor.

After his brief reign of cultural terror he passed not only into almost total obscurity but into rejection barely less absolute. Then he served as a pretext for one of the many plays with multiple roles that have happened on the island since 1959, when he appeared on a television show in 2007. It’s possible that the “little war of emails” — that followed that show — would benefit some; what’s certain is no one is disposed to repeat it now, not in the slightest skirmish. Perhaps, after everything, it has been fear, not of Pavón but simply of mentioning Pavón, that explains this momentary silence in the Cuban press.

There is also irony that it was Norberto Fuentes who reported the news to the exile. As it always happens: the censors end up depending on the censored. Too bad they never learn the lesson in time.

From Cuaderno de Cuba

27 May 2013