Renowned Cuban Poet Pablo Armando Fernandez Free Palace Press Event

Enjoy a special evening with Cuban literary superstar, Pablo Armando Fernadez, as he reads from his poetry at 6 pm, Friday, Dec. 3, in the New Mexico History Museum Auditorium, followed by a reception. This free event is co-sponsored by the Lannan Foundation, Museum of New Mexico Foundation, and the Information Trust as a benefit for the Palace Press. Attendees will receive a keepsake poem of Armando's specially printed by the Palace Press. A limited-edition, commemorative broadside of one of his poems will also be for sale.

Known in his country simply as "El Poeta," Fernadez has an enormous reputation and a distinguished career as a poet, novelist, essayist, playwright, editor and diplomat. His works have been translated into French, Italian, Polish and English. His 2001 work, Parables: Selected Poems,featured an introduction by Margaret Atwood. He received the Premio Nacional de Literatura in 1996 for lifetime accomplishment, and formerly served as the Cultural Counselor to the Cuban Embassy in London.

Born in a Cuban sugar factory in 1930, he came to New York to study as a teenager, catching the eye of author Carson McCullers. He soon became part of America's literati, returning to Cuba in 1959 after the revolution.

Among his published works are the poetry books Salterio y lamentaciones (1953), Nuevos poemas (Nueva York, 1955), Toda la poesía (1961), Himnos (1962), El libro de los héroes (1962), Un sitio permanente (Madrid, 1970), Campo de amor y de batalla (1984), El sueño y la razón (1988) and Pequeño cuaderno de Manila Hartman (2000); and the novels Los niños se despiden (1968), El vientre del pez (1989) and Otro golpe de dados (1993).

"What makes me truly Cuban," he has said, "is its history, the men and women who handed in their fortune in order to make Cuba a sovereign country. You will find this in poetry from Heredia to Guillén. To be part of that generation consolidates my being.”