ANTONIA EIRIZ RESIDENCY

RESIDENT: KATHERNE BISQUET-2021

Biography

Katherine Bisquet (Ciudad Nuclear-Cuba, 1992)
Writer. Bisquet has published the poetry books Algo aquí se descompone (Colección Sur Editores, Havana, 2014) and Ciudad Nuclear mon amour (Ediciones Sinsentido, Havana, 2020). She is the organizer and curator of the 2018 # 00 Havana Biennial and participated in a hunger strike as a member of the San Isidro movement. She was selected for the Can Serrat writers’ residency in Barcelona in spring 2020. She has published poetry, chronicles, and interviews in magazines and newspapers such as Vice en español, El Estornudo, Hyperallergic, and Hypermedia, and is co-creator of a column on Cuban cinema in Rialta Magazine. Bisquet earned a B.A.in Literature from the University of Havana.


Project description

Los mojados is a collection of twelve chronicles by Katherine Bisquet, individual stories of characters who are recognized for having lived, in one way or another, a certain displacement or marginalization from the official Cuban political norms, or what we call the “duties'' of the Cuban Revolution. These people have experienced the cultural, social, and sentimental history narrated from the centers of power. They escape the triumphalist logic and preserve their individual nature above any collective convention. In the same way, they go about their art and way of life in genuine and committed ways, true to themselves, and what they set out to be. Their experiences share a tragic trait, the misfortune of displacement and its consequences. At the same time, they highlight the beauty of the unique gesture of resistance. The following are among the subjects interviewed in the book:

1. Míster Acorde (musician and composer, Havana)
2. Marien Fernández (poet and playwright, Yaguajay)
3. Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara (visual artist, Havana)
4. Isora Morales (children’s writer, Ciudad Nuclear)
5. Maykel Castillo “Osorbo” (rapper, Havana)
6. Rafael Almanza (writer, Camagüey))
7. Hamlet Lavastida (visual artist, Havana)
8. Miñuca Villaverde (actress and filmmaker, Barcelona)

This INSTAR writing residency lasted for one year, from February 2020 to February 2021. Each month was dedicated to the process of researching and writing a chronicle. The book is edited by writers Olga Elena Suárez and Carlos Manuel Álvarez, and published in the Comentarios Reales collection of Editorial Rialta (Querétaro, Mexico). The interviews will be documented with recordings conceived for a possible documentary film, and will also have a photography series that may be part of the printed edition.

RESIDENT: MARÍA MATIENZO-2020

Biography

Matienzo is a writer and independent journalist in Havana, where she has worked for the independent sites Havana Times, Diario de Cuba, Revista Voces, ADNCuba, Hypermedia Magazine, Diario de las Américas and in the newspaper El Tiempo in Colombia. She published a selection of reports, Apocalypse Havana (americans are coming), with the Spanish publisher, Sarmancanda.

Meanwhile, Editorial Hurón Azul has published two of her stories in the anthology Alamar I love you, and a novel this year, Elizabeth aún juega a las muñecas. The Mexican magazine, Papeles de la Mancuspia published a story; another was published by Otro Lunes, in Germany, another story; and in Cuba, among other published stories, “Mientras recuerdo al Secretario del Partido” was published by Abril; an essay on Cuentos Fríos by Virgilio Piñera was fragmented in three national magazines: Matanzas, El mar y la montana, and El caimán barbudo. She is currently the director of the PIO TAI children’s literature collection at the Hurón Azul publishing house and a journalist for the independent media outlet, Cubanet.


Project description