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First ALBA Casa Cultural
opens its doors in Havana
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Raúl presents León Ferrari and Frei
Betto
with the 2009 ALBA awards
Pedro de la Hoz
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THE Casa del ALBA Cultural in Havana, the first in a
network being promoted in the region of the
Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America,
was formally inaugurated on Sunday, December 13 in
an event attended by Cuban President Raúl Castro,
Hugo Chávez and Daniel Ortega, the heads of state of
Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua, respectively, and
Ralph Gonsalves, prime minister of St. Vincent and
the Grenadines.
 Located
on the corner of Línea and D Streets in Vedado, the
new institution was the venue for the presentation
of the 2009 ALBA Prizes to Argentine León Ferrari in
the Arts section and Brazilian Frei Betto in the
Literature category.
Raúl
personally presented the awards to Betto and Paloma
Zamorano, Ferrari's granddaughter. The renowned
elderly Argentine sculptor is considered to be one
of the world's most relevant artists but was unable
to travel to Havana. Instead, he recorded a message
in which he evoked his close links with the
Caribbean
island and welcomed the usefulness and fruitfulness
of the ALBA as an example of integration.
Expressing his gratitude for the award, Frei Betto
conveyed his delight at being a witness to "the
democratic Spring" in Latin American and the
Caribbean, whose peoples are writing "a new grammar
of power."
"For
me," he affirmed, "there is no vanity with respect
to receiving this prize, as I feel it is recognition
to a literary work that attempts to give a voice to
those who have none."
And
then he drew a poetic parallel between Federico
García Lorca's The House of Bernarda Alba, in which
the Spanish writer, who was shot by a fascist firing
squad, described a somber and oppressive abode, and
this other house, which is "illuminated and has a
calling to the population."
Prior to that, one of the jury members who decided
the prizewinners, Cuban historian and journalist
Pedro Pablo Rodríguez, explained the fundamental
tenets in Ferraris' impressive body of work, notable
both for its poetic abstraction and political
commitment, and the prolific literary production of
Frei Betto, who has now published 51 books of essays
and fiction, including the essential book Fidel and
Religion.
The
ALBA prizes are given on an annual basis to writers
and artists who have devoted their lives and work to
enriching the cultural heritage of Latin America and
the Caribbean through original contributions.
One
highly symbolic gesture took place at the beginning
of the event: Roberto Fernández Retamar, president
of the Casa de las Américas, gave the opening speech
for the Casa del ALBA Cultural. The former, founded
some 50 years ago by Moncada heroine Haydée
Santamaría, has connected the roads of thought and
intellectual and artistic creation in revolutionary
Cuba and the rest of Our America; the nascent
institution is destined to increase that endeavor.
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