Who is Antonio Benítez Rojo?

Antonio Benítez Rojo

Antonio Benítez Rojo was born in Havana in 1931 and passed away in Northampton, Massachusetts in 2005. He was a narrator, screenwriter, essayist, and university professor. In 1969, he received the Casas de las Américas award for his collection of short stories titled “Tute de reyes,” and in the same year, he won the Prize of the Union of Writers and Artists of Cuba for his second collection of short stories, “El escudo de hojas secas.” He also worked as a screenwriter for the film “Los sobrevivientes,” directed by Tomás Gutiérrez Alea.

Throughout his career, he held various positions such as working for the Department of Statistics of the Ministry of Labor in 1965. He served as the Vice-Director of the National Directorate of Theater and Dance of the National Council of Culture from 1966 to 1967 and was the chief editor of Cuba International from 1968 to 1969. Before leaving Cuba in 1980, he directed three sections of Casa de las Américas: the Center for Literary Research (1970-1971), the Editorial Department (1974-1980), and the Center for Caribbean Studies (1979-1980). He compiled texts about Juan Rulfo and co-authored anthologies such as “Fifteen Stories from Latin America” in collaboration with Mario Benedetti.

Benítez Rojo was a professor of Latin American literature at Amherst College in Massachusetts and a visiting professor at several prestigious universities, including Harvard, Emory, Brown, Yale, Pittsburgh, and Miami.

His notable works include:

• “Tute de Reyes” (short stories, 1967)
• “The Shield of Dry Leaves” (short stories, 1969)
• “The Tenants” (novel, 1976)
• “Heroica” (short stories, 1977)
• “The Sea of Lentils” (novel, 1979)
• “Personal Anthology” (1997)
• “The Island that Repeats Itself: The Caribbean and the Postmodern Perspective” (essay, 1998)
• “Woman in Battle Dress” (novel, 2001)

He also wrote other works, including “The Tail of the Great Monkey” (1970) and contributed to essays, testimonials, interviews, and studies such as “The Repeating Island: Introduction,” “Lafcadio Hearn, My Aunt Gloria, and the Supernatural,” “Interview with Maria Rita Corticelli,” “Interview with

Gustavo Tatis Guerra,” and “Busts” (1977), co-authored with Jorge Luis Borges.

read Famous Writers Around the World, https://bombmagazine.org/articles/antonio-ben%C3%ADtez-rojo/