The Nobel Prize for Literature Mario Vargas Llosa brings to Vozpopuli this note.
“Jorge Edwards became very famous with a book on Cuba, which he published in the 1970s; the book revealed his conversations with Fidel Castro as well as those he had with an opposition group with which he was closely related. The book was impressive because it was the first to deeply and rigorously criticize the Cuban dictatorship.. In it Jorge also confessed his own fears, when he was taken for a walk by an unpremeditated tide and his feeling that they could lose him.
The work was widely distributed in Latin America and contributed to Edwards’ fame. I consider him a great novelist and a writer who poured into his novels many personal experiences, including his belated confession that a priest had been abusive at school, which, however, was not an obstacle to the good opinion he had of the Jesuits, although it remained like trauma. In short, Edwards was a very important writer in the years when Latin American literature gained an extraordinary presence, since he contributed a lot to establishing that level that he reached“, highlights
Censored in Cuba
The text to which Vargas Llosa refers is Persona non grata (1973), commissioned by the government of the socialist Salvador Allende, who appointed him responsible for business at the Chilean embassy in Fidel Castro’s Cuba. The essay would reach the rare merit of being banned by both the Cuban and Chilean governments, in addition to earning him the enmity of leftist political forces. and created a great controversy among Latin American writers.
Upon his return from Cuba, Edwards was again sent as embassy secretary to Paris, where he would report to Pablo Neruda. After the coup led by Augusto Pinochet, Edwards was forced to abandon his diplomatic career.. He went into exile in Barcelona, where he would work at the Seix Barral publishing house, dedicating himself to literature and journalism.
Edwards returned to Santiago de Chile in 1978, where he was one of the founders and, later, president of the Committee for the Defense of Freedom of Expression. In 1988 he was one of the founders of the political movement Independents for the Democratic Consensus.. Once democracy was restored, President Eduardo Frei Ruiz-Tagle appointed him ambassador to Unesco (1994-1996).
