Georgina Herrera


Georgina Herrera is a Cuban writer of poetry, novels and short stories. She has also written drama and scripts for radio and television series, as well as for film.

Biography

Georgina Herrera was born in Jovellanos, the capital of Matanzas Province, Cuba. She began writing when she was nine years old, and when she was 16 her first poems were published, in such Havana periodicals as El País and Diario de la Tarde. As Miriam DeCosta-Willis has noted, "Many of her later poems capture the pain and loneliness of her growing-up years", during which she endured poverty, an absent father and the death of her mother when she was 14.
Aged 20, Herrera moved to Havana in 1956, and worked as a domestic; it was in the homes of her wealthy employers that she met writers, who encouraged her to publish. Early in the Cuban Revolution she became involved with the "Novación Literaria" movement, and began working as a scriptwriter at the Cuban Institute for Radio and Television.
She married the novelist Manolo Granados, and they had two children, though later divorced.

Writing

Her first poetry collection, G.H. appeared in 1962, since when she has published several books, characteristically using themes that centre on gender, Afro-Cuban history, and the African legacy: Gentes y cosas, Granos de sol y luna, Grande es el tiempo, Gustadas sensaciones, Gritos, África, and Gatos y liebres or Libro de las conciliaciones. Although best known as a poet, Herrera has also worked as a scriptwriter for radio, television and film. With Daisy Rubiera she has co-authored a memoir entitled Golpeando la memoria: Testimonio de una poeta cubana afrodescendiente.
According to dissident journalist Jorge Olivera Castillo: "A recurring theme in her work reveals a commitment to her race regarding the avatars of their current existence and a past that is also filled with stigmas.... It is also important to point out that she was part of the repressed Grupo El Puente literary and publishing group, which in the 1960s attempted to create a space for art and literature beyond the confines of officialdom. This caused her to be marginalized, as happened with almost all of the group’s members. Yet, despite the obstacles...Georgina Herrera did not opt for exile or silencing her woes. She persevered in her desire to defend her principled position—and she won."
Herrera has won much recognition both in Cuba and abroad. Her work has been translated into various languages and is included in the anthologies Breaking the Silences: 20th Century Poetry by Cuban Women
and Daughters of Africa. She is also a contributor to Afro-Cuban Voices: On Race and Identity in Contemporary Cuba, edited by Pedro Perez Sarduy and Jean Stubbs.
A bi-lingual Spanish/English collection of Herrera's work, entitled Always Rebellious/Cimarroneando: Selected Poems, won the 2016 International Latino Book Award for Best Bilingual Poetry Book. Herrera has said of the collection, whose title references maroons, Africans who escaped from enslavement in the Americas: "The inspiration for the book was my life experiences, it is a definition of me."

Selected bibliography