Roberto Fernandez Retamar was born in Havana, Cuba in 1930. He earned his doctorate in Letters and Philosophy at the University of Havana in 1954. He also holds a doctorate in Philology Sciences and is a Holder Investigator in Cuba. Retamar completed his post-graduate studies at the Universities of London and Paris from 1955-56. After leaving Europe, he taught at Yale University from 1957-58 and has served as professor emeritus at the University of Havana since 1995. Beginning in 1951, he worked on and led various magazines, including Orígenes; Nueva Revista Cubana; Unión; and Casa de las Americas. Retamar served as the Cuba cultural counselor in France (1960) and secretary of the UNEAC (1961-1964). His notebooks and poetry were published in Poesía nuevamente reunida (2009). His research and essays can be found in Idea de la estilística (1967 and 2011); Ensayo de otro mundo (1967 and 1969); Introducción a José Martí (1978 and 2001); Pensamiento de nuestra America; and Autorreflexiones y propuestas (2006). Retamar published two editions of a combined book of prose and verse, Fervor de la Argentina. His writing has been translated into many languages, and he has received numerous awards for his academic scholarship as well as various honorary doctorates. Retamar founded the Center for Martian Studies and served as its director for more than a decade.
Tim Reynolds is a North American translator.
Tim Reynolds is a North American translator.
for Antonia Eiriz
How lucky they are, the normal ones, those peculiars creatures:
The ones who didn´t have a crazy mother, a drunk for a father, a
delinquent son,
A house nowhere at all, an unknown disease,
The one not eaten at by a corrosive love,
The ones who´ve worn all the seventeen smiling faces and more,
The one stuffed with shoes, the cute one,
The Rin-tin-tins & their secretaries, the one who say “sure, why not?
this way, “
The ones who make money & are loved up to the hilt,
The flutists accompanied by mice,
The hucksters & their clientele,
The gentlemen just a touch superhuman,
The men dressed in thunder & the women dressed in lightning,
The delicate ones, the prudent ones, the ones with taste,
The courteous ones, the sweet ones, the edibles & potables,
How lucky they are, birds & manure & stones.
Just let them keep out of the way of the others, the ones who make
Worlds & dreams, illusions
& symphonies, words that tear us down
& rebuild us, crazier than their mothers, drunker
Than their fathers, worse delinquents than their sons,
More eaten at by loves more corrosive:
Let them leave these their stations in hell & forget it.
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