Daína Chaviano


Daína Chaviano is a Cuban-American writer of French and Asturian descent living in the United States since 1991.
She is considered one of the three most important female fantasy and science fiction writers in the Spanish language, along with Angélica Gorodischer and Elia Barceló, forming the so-called “feminine trinity of science fiction in Ibero-America.”
In Cuba, she published several science fiction and fantasy books, becoming the most renowned and best-selling author in those genres in Cuban literature. Since leaving the island, she has distinguished herself with a series of novels incorporating historical and more contemporary matters as well as mythological and fantastic elements.

Biography

She was born in Havana, the first of four children of an economist father, and a mother with two Ph.D.: one in Philosophy and Letters, and the other in Psychology.
When she had barely begun her university studies, she won the first science fiction competition ever organized in Cuba with her short story collection Los mundos que amo, in 1979. After the book was published, the main story was adapted and published as a photonovel in 1982, selling 200,000 copies in 3 months, an unprecedented fact that started her popularity as an author. The plot - almost the same in the short story and in its photonovel version - has been considered "an editorial phenomenon" that "questioned the hierarchical structures that the governing institutions of the revolutionary culture imposed in the literary field as early as 1960". This sales record "broke with an editorial logic that considered science fiction as a minor genre." Furthermore, "Daína Chaviano claimed literary genres established and controlled mostly by male writers who arrived with the Revolution - that is, writers who did not take part in the processes of the pre-1959 revolutionary struggle - a recognition that placed science fiction written by women, in feminine, in the Cuban editorial map and in the space of national culture".
After earning a bachelor's degree in English Language and Literature at the University of Havana, she established the first science fiction literary workshop in her country, which she named “Oscar Hurtado” in honor of the father of that genre on the Caribbean island.
In 1991 she left Cuba, establishing residency in the United States, where she worked as a translator, columnist, and editor.
In 1998 she achieved international recognition when she was awarded the Azorín Prize for Best Novel in Spain for El hombre, la hembra y el hambre. This work forms part of her series «The Occult Side of Havana», together with Casa de juegos, Gata encerrada, and La isla de los amores infinitos. The series has been described as “the most coherent novelistic project of its generation, indispensable for understanding the social psychology and spiritual vicissitudes of the Cuban people.”
The Island of Eternal Love has been published in 26 languages, making it the most widely translated Cuban novel of all time. In 2007 the novel was awarded the Gold Medal at the Florida Book Awards, in the category Best Book in Spanish Language.
In 2004 Chaviano was guest of honor at the 25th International Conference for the Fantastic in the Arts in the United States. It was the first time that honor had ever been conferred on a Spanish-language writer.
In November 2014, she was also the guest of honor during the University Book Fair in Tabasco, where she received the Malinalli National Award for the Promotion of Arts, Human Rights and Cultural Diversity, which until then had only received figures of Mexican culture and society. It was the first time this award was given to an international figure.
Her short story collection Extraños testimonios was published in 2017. In an interview, Chaviano classified the genre of this work as "Caribbean Gothic," as it brings together "elements of horror, absurdity, eroticism, and a certain dose of humor à la Cortázar, amidst tropical and sunny environments, specifically in the Caribbean."
In 2019 her historical thriller Los hijos de la Diosa Huracán was published by Grijalbo, the Spanish imprint of Penguin Random House. The novel, which required more than a decade of research work, recreates and rescues the Taínos' world, following the trail and paying homage to the legacy of the main Caribbean indigenous culture. Hence the importance of Taino mythology in the novel, especially the symbolism of their three main goddesses: Atabey, Guabancex, and Iguanaboína. In 2020 the novel was awarded the Gold Medal at the Florida Book Awards 2019 contest, in the category Best Book in Spanish Language, making Chaviano the only writer to twice receive the award in that category.
Chaviano has been a guest lecturer and visiting author at several universities and colleges, like Denison University, Florida International University, Miami Dade College, University of North Georgia, and others.
She is the cousin of the Cuban actor César Évora.

Literary influences

Her literary influences derive fundamentally from the Celtic world, from diverse mythologies, and from the principal epics of ancient peoples. Among these sources one can find the Arthurian cycle; Greek, Roman, Egyptian, pre-Columbian and Afro-Cuban myths; and humankind’s first epics, dating back to prehistory, such as the Epic of Gilgamesh, the Mahabharata, the Popol Vuh, the Odyssey, and other similar works.
The author has observed that she has no affinity whatsoever with Cuban literature of any period. Chaviano has stated that, with the exception of authors such as Manuel Mujica Laínez and Mario Vargas Llosa, her only point of contact with Latin America is pre-Columbian mythology.
The author has said that her passion for Anglo-Saxon literature was always so strong that, when she entered the university, she decided to major in English literature so that she could read many of these authors in their original language.
In general terms, her contemporary influences come from European and Anglophone authors like Margaret Atwood, Milan Kundera, Ursula K. Le Guin, Ray Bradbury, Anaïs Nin, J. R. R. Tolkien, and William Shakespeare, among others.

Style

Daína Chaviano’s works have been described as “bold experiments that break down the boundaries between genres.” Her style is characterized by:

Works in Spanish

Outside Cuba:
In Cuba:

Awards and recognitions