Nicolás Guillén’s Followers (47)

Nicolás Guillén

Born

in Camagüey, Cuba

July 10, 1902

Died

July 16, 1989

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Nicolás Cristóbal Guillén Batista was a Cuban poet, journalist, political activist, and writer. He is best remembered as the national poet of Cuba.

Guillén was born in Camagüey, Cuba. He studied law at the University of Havana, but he soon abandoned a legal career and worked as a typographer and journalist.

His poetry was published in various magazines from the early 1920s and his first collection, Motivos de son, appeared in 1930. West Indies, Ltd., published in 1934, was Guillén's first collection of poetry with political implications.[2] Cuba's dictatorial Machado regime had been overthrown in 1933, but political repression in the following years intensified. In 1936, with other editors of Mediodía, Guillén was arrested on trumped-up charg Nicolás Cristóbal Guillén Batista was a Cuban poet, journalist, political activist, and writer. He is best remembered as the national poet of Cuba.

Guillén was born in Camagüey, Cuba. He studied law at the University of Havana, but he soon abandoned a legal career and worked as a typographer and journalist.

His poetry was published in various magazines from the early 1920s and his first collection, Motivos de son, appeared in 1930. West Indies, Ltd., published in 1934, was Guillén's first collection of poetry with political implications.[2] Cuba's dictatorial Machado regime had been overthrown in 1933, but political repression in the following years intensified. In 1936, with other editors of Mediodía, Guillén was arrested on trumped-up charges, and spent some time in jail. In 1937 he joined the Communist Party and made his first trip abroad–to attend a Congress of Writers and Artists in Spain. During his travels in the country he covered Spain's Civil War as a magazine reporter.
Guillén returned to Cuba via Guadeloupe. He stood as a Communist in the local elections of 1940. The following year he was refused a visa to enter the United States, but he travelled widely over the next twenty years – in South America, China and Europe. Guillén's poetry was increasingly becoming imbued with issues of cross-cultural Marxist dialectic. He was prevented by the Batista government from entering Cuba in 1953, but was welcomed back by Fidel Castro after the revolution, becoming appointed president of the Unión Nacional de Escritores de Cuba–the National Cuban Writers' Union–in 1961. He also wrote some evocative and poignant poetry highlighting social conditions, such as "Problemas de Subdesarrollo" and "Dos Niños". He was awarded the Stalin Peace Prize in 1954, which was later renamed for Lenin under de-Stalinization and also the Laureate Of The International Botev Prize in 1976. He was the inaugural winner of Cuba's National Prize for Literature (1983).

Nicolás Guillén died in 1989 at age 87 and was buried in the Colon Cemetery, Havana. His nephew was experimental Cuban filmmaker Nicolás Guillén Landrián (1938–2003). ...more

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Nicolás Guillén’s books

Average rating: 4.0 · 1,324 ratings · 164 reviews · 196 distinct works • Similar authors

	Songoro cosongo y otros poemas 3.84 avg rating — 142 ratings — published 1930 — 10 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Man-Making Words: Selected Poems by Nicolás Guillén, David A. McMurray, Roberto Márquez (Editor) 4.23 avg rating — 70 ratings — published 1972 — 9 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Motivos de Son 4.03 avg rating — 67 ratings — published 1930 — 5 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Summa poética by Nicolás Guillén, Luis Íñigo Madrigal (Editor) 4.04 avg rating — 52 ratings — published 1976 — 5 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Great Zoo/El Gran Zoo 3.98 avg rating — 45 ratings — published 1967 — 10 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	El son entero. Cantos para soldados y Sones para turistas 4.16 avg rating — 43 ratings — published 1947 — 4 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Yoruba from Cuba: Selected Poems by Nicolás Guillén, Alistair Hennessy (Foreword), Salvador Ortiz-Carboneres (Preface) 4.07 avg rating — 42 ratings — published 2004 — 5 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Nicolas Guillen: Poesia 4.19 avg rating — 37 ratings	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	balada de los dos abuelos 3.35 avg rating — 43 ratings	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Songoro cosongo really liked it 4.00 avg rating — 31 ratings	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

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Quotes by Nicolás Guillén (?)

“Guitarra

Fueron a cazar guitarras,
bajo la luna llena.
Y trajeron ésta,
pálida, fina, esbelta,
ojos de inagotable mulata,
cintura de abierta madera.
Es joven, apenas vuela.
Pero ya canta
cuando oye en otras jaulas
aletear sones y coplas.
Los sonesombres y las coplasolas.
Hay en su jaula esta inscripción:
Cuidado: sueña.”

Guitar

They went out hunting guitars
under the full moon
and brought back this one:
pale, elegant, shapely,
eyes of inexhaustible mulatta,
a waist of open wood.
She’s young, she barely flies.
But already she sings
when she hears the flutter
of sones and couplets
in other cages.
The somber sones and the lonely couplets.
There is this inscription on her cage:
Beware: she dreams.”
― Nicolás Guillén

9 likes

“...la pureza de quien no llegó a ser lo suficientemente impuro para saber qué cosa es la pureza.
”
― Nicolás Guillén

3 likes

“¿Puedes vender cielo,
el cielo azul a veces,
o gris también a veces,
una parcela de tu cielo,
el que compraste, piensas tú, con los árboles]
de tu huerto, como quien compra el techo con la casa?]
¿Puedes venderme un dólar
de cielo, dos kilómetros
de cielo, un trozo, el que tú piensas,
de tu cielo?”
― Nicolás Guillén

3 likes

See all Nicolás Guillén's quotes »

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