Jorge Olivera Castillo

Jorge Olivera Castillo (b. Havana, Cuba, 1961) is a Cuban poet and dissident.

He worked as a journalist for the Cuban state-run television station ICRT for 10 years.[1] He was briefly detained in 1992 for trying to leave the country on a raft;[1] in 1993, he left his position at ICRT and began writing reports for Radio Martí, a U.S.-funded, Miami-based station critical of the Cuban government.[2] With two other journalists, he founded an independent news agency, Havana Press, in 1995, and later became the director.[1]

Olivera Castillo was arrested in 2003 as part of the Black Spring crackdown and sentenced to eighteen years in prison for writing articles "against national independence and Cuba's economy".[3] In prison, he spent nine months in solitary confinement, and suffered from a range of health problems.[2][1] He began writing poetry and fiction while in prison as a coping mechanism.[2] His wife, Nancy Alfaya, became a member of the Ladies in White, agitating for his release.[4][2] After international pressure,[5] he was released for health reasons after serving only 18 months of his sentence, but remained under close supervision.[2][3] He is currently a visiting scholar at Harvard University.[6]

Works

Poetry
  • Confesiones antes del crepúsculo. Miami: Ed. Proyecto de Bibliotecas Independientes, 2005.
  • En cuerpo y alma. Ed. Olgy and Olega Krylovových. Prague: PEN Czech Republic, 2008. (Spanish and Czech)
—, 2010. (Spanish and French)
  • Sobrevivir en la boca del lobo. Madrid: Editorial Hispano Cubana, 2012. ISBN 9788493742379.
  • Cenizas alumbradas. Warsaw: Lech Walesa Foundation, 2010. (Spanish and Polish)
  • Tatuajes en la memoria. Prague, 2013.
  • Quemar las naves. [Miami]: Neo Club Ediciones, 2015. ISBN 9781519200570.

Short stories
  • Huésped del infierno. Valencia: Editorial Aduana Vieja, 2007. ISBN 978-84-935219-8-1.
  • Antes que amanezca : y otros relatos. Buenos Aires: Fundación Cadal, 2010. ISBN 9789872344627.
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References
  1. "Journalist Jorge Olivera Castillo released on medical grounds". IFEX. 9 December 2004. Retrieved 3 March 2017.
  2. Mineo, Liz (6 December 2016). "Out of 'the wolf's mouth'". Harvard Gazette. Retrieved 3 March 2017.
  3. Olivera Castillo, Jorge. "From Dream to Reality". English PEN. Retrieved 1 February 2017.
  4. "Nancy". Mujeres Coraje (in Spanish). 3 March 2010. Retrieved 3 March 2017.
  5. Congressional Record Proceedings and Debates of the 108th Congress Second Session. Government Printing Office. p. 8730. ISBN 978-0-16-082001-4.
  6. "Jorge Olivera Castillo". Department of Comparative Literature, Harvard University. Retrieved 3 March 2017.



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