Cuentos completos

by Virgilio Piñera

Virgilio Piñera (1912-1979) -narrador, poeta, dramaturgo- constituye, sin duda, una extraordinaria revelación para el lector español. Colaborador de la hoy mítica revista Orígenes , que abarcó a toda la vanguardia literaria cubana (Lezama Lima, Julio Rodríguez Feo, Eliseo Diego, Cintio Vitier...), fue además secretario de redacción de otra histórica revista, Ciclón, fundada y dirigida también por Rodríguez Feo. Su obra se produce, por tanto, dentro de uno de los movimientos más vivos y fulgurantes de la historia de la literatura cubana. Desterrado voluntariamente a Argentina, vivió en Buenos Aires desde 1946 hasta 1958. Allí Borges fue el primero en apreciar y publicar su obra. Regresó a Cuba en 1958 y residió allí hasta su muerte en 1979. Por primera vez en nuestro país se publican todos los cuentos de Virgilio Piñera -incluidos algunos inéditos hasta el momento- reunidos en un solo volumen prologado por el escritor cubano Antón Arrufat.

608 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2002

About the author

Virgilio Piñera Llera was a Cuban author, playwright, poet, short-story writer, and essayist.
Among his most famous poems are "La isla en peso" (1943), and "La gran puta" (1960). He was a member of the "Origenes" literary group, although he often differed with the conservative views of the group. In the late 1950s he co-founded the literary journal Ciclón. Following a long exile in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Piñera returned to Cuba in 1958, months before Fidel Castro took power.
His work includes essays on literature and literary criticism, several collections of short stories compiled under the title of Cold Tales, a great number of dramatic works, and three novels: La carne de René (Rene's Flesh), Presiones y Diamantes (Pressures and Diamonds), and Las pequeñas maniobras (Small manoeuvres). His work is seen today as a model by new generations of Cuban and Latin American writers. Some believe that his work influenced that of Reinaldo Arenas, who wrote in his memoir Before Night Falls of Piñera's time in Argentina and friendship there with Witold Gombrowicz.
The magazine Unión posthumously published autobiographical writing by Piñera in which he discussed how he concluded he was gay. However, his work can not be reduced to his open discussions on homosexuality in a time when such a topic was taboo, especially in the Spanish Caribbean. Piñera's literary and cultural perspective went beyond sexuality, to express concerns on national and continental identity, philosophical approaches to theater, writing and politics. This focus drew fire from the Spanish American literary establishment of his time, including Cuban poets Cintio Vitier and Roberto Fernandez Retamar, and leaders like Fidel Castro and Che Guevara.
Due to Piñera's social points of view and especially to his homosexuality, he was censured by the revolution, and died without any official recognition. As more of his work has been translated into English, Piñera's work has been rediscovered by American academia as a testimony of 20th century resistance against totalitarian systems.

Reviews

[Glenn Russell]

The below trio are among my favorites from this collection of Cuentos Completos (Complete Tales) by the great Cuban writer Vigilio Piñera. Take a look at my write-up of the first popper and then the second and third in their entirety -

Vigilio Piñera on what it can mean to be taken for a lunatic -

THE FACE
Virgilio received a phone call from a man who says he's in great danger. Virgilio asks who's calling and then thinks better of it and hangs up. The caller calls again. Virgilio tells him to he didn't call the right number but the caller, his voice filled with anguish, implores Virgilio not to hang up, tells Virgilio he picked his phone number at random, that all of his agony and misery is a consequence of his face, a face possessing the power of seduction so strong people shun him fearing his face will cause them irreparable harm. Virgilio tells him not to lose heart as everything in the world has a cure. Not true, pleads the caller, even his parents shun him. The telephone is his only consolation a everyone, without exception, takes him for a lunatic.

Virgilio is moved, but then again, perhaps he is, in fact, speaking with a lunatic. Virgilio feels like bursting out in laughter, however, the caller's voice contains so much sincerity and pain, maybe the caller isn't a prankster after all.

More exchanges until Virgilio reaches the point where he nearly screams, "I absolutely have to see you! I'm literally dying to contemplate your face." Virgilio goes on to explain that as a writer he also suffers - his own face plays tricks on people.

The caller didn't expect such a statement from a stranger on the phone. Following further impassioned back and forth, the caller agrees to meet and speak directly with Virgilio - in the dark.

What happens next and next amounts to a literary stroke of genius, events culminating in a soul to soul communication. How exactly does this happen? You'll have to read for yourself but I'll provide a hint: something resembling the ultimate human sacrifice.

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Vigilio Piñera on a special solution for lovers -

INDESTRUCTIBLE UNION
Our love is going from bad to worse. It's slipping from our hands, our mouths, our eyes, our hearts. Her breast no longer takes refuge in mine and my legs no longer run to her. We have come to the most terrible thing that could happen to two lovers: we turn away from each other. She has taken off my face and throws it on the bed: I have taken off hers and violently thrust it into the space left by mine. We won't watch over our love any longer. How sad for us to go our separate ways.

Still, I haven't given up. I see a simple solution. I've bought a drum of tar. Having guessed my intention, she undresses in the blink of an eye. Immediately, she submerges herself in the viscous fluid. Her body undulates in the black thickness of the tar. When I figure it has impregnated the deepest recesses of her body, I order her to get out and lie down on the marble tiles of the garden. I, in turn, submerge myself in the saving tar. A burning sun blazes over our heads. I lie down at her side; we join in tight embrace. It is noon. Making a conservative estimate, I expect that by this afternoon, we will have consummated our indestructible union.

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Vigilio Piñera on writers of fiction -

GRAPHOMANIA
All writers - the great ones and the hacks - have been summoned to trial in the Sahara desert. For hundreds of miles this powerful army treads the burning sands, straining its ear, its sharpened ear, to hear the accusation. Suddenly, a parrot flies out of a tent. Planted firmly on its feet, it fluffs its neck feathers an in a cracked voice - it's a very old parrot - says:

"You are accused of the crime of graphomania."

It immediately goes back into the tent.

An icy breeze blows among the writers. All heads come together: there is a brief deliberation. The most outstanding one of them leaves the ranks.

"Please . . . " he says at the door of the tent.

At once the parrot appears.

"Your Excellency," the delegate says. "Your Excellency, in the name of my colleagues I ask you: Will we be able to continue writing?"

"Why, of course," the parrot responds, nearly shrieking. "It is understood that you will continue writing as much as you please."

Indescribable jubilation. Parched lips kiss the sand, fraternal embraces, some even take out pencil and paper.

"May this be recorded in letters of gold," they say.

But the parrot, coming out of the tent once more, pronounces the sentence:

"Write as much as you like," and it coughs lightly, "but this won't release you from standing accused of the crime of graphomania."

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Here's G. Cabrera-Infante's words of fire when speaking of the short fiction of Vigilio Piñera: “When I tell you that by reading these stories you’ll get a kick out of them I don’t mean champagne or cocaine. I’m talking of a true kick. A kick in the groin or in the stomach but most of the time a kick in the soul, where it hurts metaphysically and you bleed eternally.”

For readers of English wishing to read the short stories of Vigilio Piñera, Cold Tales published by The Eridanos Library is your book.


Cuban author Vigilio Piñera, 1912-1979

[Nora · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Es entonces cuando el mundo se termina: no con un sollozo, más con una pista -dijo, melancólicamente. Amenofis -. Y si es así, si es como todo en la vida, y si así puede afirmarse, entonces empecemos el mundo donde el mundo se acaba, porque si se acaba con una pista, también empezará de nuevo con una pista."
El impromptu en Fa de Federico Chopin