The 5 most interesting verses and quotes by Cuban authors in Havana

Cuba’s foremost national hero, a writer and leader who was martyred in battle.

Like stones rolling down hills, fair ideas reach their objectives despite all obstacles and barriers. It may be possible to speed or hinder them, but impossible to stop them.

Cuban poet of social protest and leader of the Afro-Cuban movement in the late twenties and thirties. He is best remembered as the national poet of Cuba.

We’ve got Chinese, white, black and mixed; but remember that our colors are cheap, for after many years of contracts and tricks nobody’s purity runs very deep.

Critic, journalist and novelist. Best known for his Tres tigres tristes.

What I do believe is that there is always a relationship between writing and reading, a constant interplay between the writer on the one hand and the reader on the other.

Dulce María Loynaz is the ‘Grande dame’ of Cuban poetry. In 1987 she won Cuba’s National Literature Prize and gave a reading at the José Martí national library on her eighty-fifth birthday. Garden, still unpublished in Cuba at the time, was adapted by Cuba’s National Ballet starring Loynaz’s friend Alicia Alonso in the leading role.

I broke every road I walked.
Then I stood alone
and faced the night

Cuban poet and novelist. His autobiography Before the night falls was made into a film by Julian Schnabel. Javier Bardem starred in it as Arenas.

To discover a city is in itself a unique event, but when we have the privilege of sharing it with friends most dear to us, it becomes a once-in-a-lifetime experience.