Now I feel more free in my conscience

Now I feel more free in my conscience: Interview with the writer Ángel
Santiesteban / Ángel Santiesteban
Angel Santiesteban, Translator: Regina Anavy
by Ernesto Santana Zaldívar

HAVANA, Cuba, June, www.cubanet.org – In the '90s, the generation of the
Novísimos (the Newest) brought to Cuban literature themes and narrative
forms that marked a certain rupture with the previous generations. Angel
Santiesteban, born in 1966, became one of the most emblematic creators
of this time, not only for the prizes he won, but also for the
acceptance he achieved with readers. The son of a businessman and a
nurse in Cienfuegos, Santiesteban studied in the "Camilitos" when he
decided to begin a career as Commander of Tactical Troops.

But, according to the story, "God took me violently from this path
sending me to prison for having accompanied my brothers to the coast in
1984, when they left the country. I was in prison for 14 months in La
Cabaña, accused of conspiracy, although I was absolved at the trial
because this crime doesn't exist among brothers. But I know that God
sent me there for a reason, and I thank Him, because it made me grow up
and understand the pain of people. It was there that I discovered I
wanted to be a writer, that it was through writing that I could give a
voice to those who suffered."

He then started going to night school at the Faculty of Letters, but,
needing money for his family, he went to work as an assistant director
at ICRT (Cuban Radio and Television Institute), at the time he was
completing his studies as a film director at ICAIC (Cuban Institute on
Cinematographic Arts and Industry). However, the urge to write imposed
itself, and he abandoned his work to dedicate himself to writing.

To his surprise, in 1989 he received an honorable mention with his third
short story in the French Juan Rulfo contest. In 1990 he won the
national literary workshop prize with his story, "South: Latitude 3″ and
later, in 1992, he sent a book with the same title to the Casa de Las
Americas contest, which he won, but immediately the political police
prohibited the jury from awarding him the prize.

"In 1995," Santiesteban said, "I submitted the same book under another
title, "Dream of a Summer Day," which, in spite of winning the UNEAC
(The Union of Writers and Artists of Cuba) prize, came out three years
later with the condition that I take out five stories." In 2001 he won
the Alejo Carpentier short story prize with "The Children Nobody
Wanted," and in 2006, the Casa de Las Americas prize with "Blessed are
Those Who Mourn."

CUBANET: From your first publications it was evident that your subject
matter was raw, modern and controversial, and besides the reader could
think that you were relating personal experiences. Why did you choose
these themes?

ANGEL SANTIESTEBAN: I experienced a raw reality and my writing started
to be raw. For example, the theme of Angola. As I came from a military
world and aspired to be a soldier, I discovered that many feelings of
the internationalist soldier coincided with those of the prisoners I
knew in La Cabaña: They were far from home, their family and their
environment; they were under pressure; they had profound sexual desires;
they committed acts of indiscipline; they were given orders by the Army;
they had to keep rigorous schedules. So behind this internationalist
soldier that I describe is my experience as a prisoner.

Occasionally some veteran of these wars asks me if I was in Angola, but
I tell them that I was a prisoner and that I know these feelings. In
addition, I have a brother who lived that experience. Before going he
was the most rational person in the family, and he always gave good
advice. When he returned he was the crazy person in the family.

I never planned to write this kind of story, but it emerged from my
experience. It never occurred to me to write against the system. One
time a writer I respected told me my writing was unfair. In that moment
I understood he was right, that it was unfair that I expose the ugly
side of those men who had sacrificed so much. But later another writer
told me something that helped me a lot: "Literature is not fair or
unfair. It's true or false. That's what you should worry about."

CN: Where do you feel most comfortable: in the short story, the novel,
in your blog?

AS: I feel most comfortable with short stories. Although it seems weird
to say, the truth is that when I feel like writing, a short story comes
out. Then I only have to fix some words. I'm short-winded. Writing a
novel requires tremendous work. I suffer a lot, I procrastinate, I don't
want to continue. Furthermore, I can't sit still, and a novel requires
me to be more stable, more concentrated, and I'm very unconcentrated. As
for the blog, I'm afraid of losing the discipline because it's like a
more refined journalistic chronicle. I'm not a journalist; I'm a writer,
but sometimes life takes you to unexpected places. All in all, I started
to write to give a voice to those who don't know how or can't do it.

CN: Do you have favorite writers? Which ones have influenced your writing?

AS: I constantly read and re-read Hemingway, Rulfo, Isaac Babel,
Dostoyevsky. They are the ones I follow and the ones who from the
beginning brought me the most. Although I should also note that Kafka
always was there, sleeping (of course, I'm preparing a book of short
stories about the absurd). From Cuba, I should mention Eduardo Heras
León, who was the closest thing to a maestro writer I had. And, well,
the writing of Virgilio Piñera has always been fundamental for me.

CN: There's no doubt that you were one of the most famous members of the
Novísimos (the Newest). How do you see yourself with respect to your
generation and, in general, with respect to present-day Cuban literature?

AS: I believe that the Novísimos were a kind of family. I don't know if
it was so important as a literary movement, but as a movement of
brotherhood, yes, it was. We all took a lot of care of one another. Now
we're dispersed, which is like a puzzle that you can't put back
together. Inside Cuban literature I feel alone, separated, in internal
exile. And from the time I started my blog, I was no longer tolerable.
They chewed up my writing, but they didn't swallow it, and with my blog
they spat out everything I was thinking inside.

Iroel Sánchez, who was then the President of the Cuban Institute of the
Book, was the Taliban who "executed" me, who ordered me to be taken out
of any anthology, any presentation. And he had me by the balls. He had
been in the war in Angola, and his buddies asked him how it was possible
that he would agree to publish "The Children Nobody Wanted." Also, the
Association of Combatants sent him a letter complaining about the book.
He told me things like, "Angel, aren't you aware that you're serving the
enemy? Don't you see that without wanting to you're putting yourself in
the service of the Yankees?"

CN: Do you think Cuban intellectuals are obligated ethically to be
critical of the Regime?

AS: I believe they are obligated above all to follow their conscience.
If you believe that you should defend Fidel Castro, defend him. If you
have to defend the Revolution, defend it with your teeth. I don't
criticize that. What happens is that there is an amazing opportunism. In
private there are those who are more against the Regime than I am.
Extreme right. I have ended up feeling like a Leftist with these people.
And later they do whatever they can to get a trip abroad. Their banner
is opportunism, cynicism. They're capable of saying in public that Cuba
is the best, and later, in private and under their breath, they tell you
that Fidel Castro should hurry up and die.

CN: You have lived through almost unbelievable experiences — detentions,
beatings, a shooting, very grave accusations, harassment, persecution,
surveillance, without, properly speaking, being a dissident or an active
opponent. To what do you attribute this obstinacy on the part of the
political police?

AS: I don't even know how many political parties there are in Cuba. I
don't belong to any. I don't go to any political meetings. I fight for
the dreams of Cubans who want to live with dignity, in a democracy. This
country cannot endure any more caudillismo.

CN: You reported that once an old man asked you if you thought
civilization existed outside this island and then confessed to you that
he was tired of throwing bottles into the sea. Do you think that once
you could have said the same thing?

AS: I think Cubans who leave are the first to ignore these bottles. A
large number of Cubans leave and begin buying and living what they
couldn't have before, disentangling themselves from the reality they
left behind. Many say they are economic immigrants as if this didn't
make them political immigrants.

If you leave for economic reasons it's because your country has a bad
economic administration. Furthermore, it's terrible to know that you
don't have a way back. Sometimes I wonder how many bottles have to be
launched and if they will continue being thrown into the water if many
of the Cubans who leave don't even look at them. However, Facebook is
for me a tremendous thing, something that almost surpasses a blog,
because it's more alive, quicker.

CN: This year is the official celebration of the centennial of the birth
of Virgilio Piñera. What do you think is being done to honor him?

AS: Virgilio Piñera merits a major homage. That a man like him has
passed through this island should be for us a reason for perpetual
pride. The terrible thing is that those who killed his spirit, who
condemned him to fear, who did him so much harm, pretend now that they
didn't have any responsibility, that they acted without wanting to. His
crime was being gay without being a revolutionary, and furthermore being
a great writer. I'm happy that they published the most possible of his
work. He deserves it, and Cubans deserve it also, especially the
generations that don't know him. But you can't forget all the suffering
they caused him. There is nothing that can erase that.

CN: How do you see the present situation in Cuba?

AS: There's an impasse. The rhythm we had has slowed down. I think
that's the result of the Pope's visit. I feel that nothing is happening,
that we're lost. I don't see an immediate way out of our situation.

CN: Why did you run in the last marathon in Havana with the image of
Laura Pollán on your chest?

AS: I ran several years in the Marabana, but this time I felt very hurt
by her death, for having lost her as a leader. I thought that Laura was
going to be the person who would topple the government, because of her
vigor, her vitality, her courage that few are capable of. Perhaps she
was God. Others say that they took her out. In any event we Cubans owe
her for everything she did for us, and the least I could do was to wear
her image on my chest so that people who don't know her would ask who
she was. It was my way of demonstrating to her, in Heaven or wherever
she is, my gratitude for what she did, and to tell her that her
sacrifice was not in vain.

CN: Why do you continue living in this country when you probably could
have a quieter life outside?

AS: Someone once commented in my blog that surely I was one of those who
has enough pull to go to the United States. However, I've traveled to
the United States several times and never stayed. Precisely, they have
not let me leave the country since I started the blog. I've had to post
a bond for three years because of the stupid denouncements against me.

On the other hand, leaving would be like surrendering. I believe that
where you contribute, the more you are there. You can also contribute
from abroad, but here you can contribute more directly. What I fear is
to wear myself out in vain, now that I have sacrificed my writing. It's
been eight months without writing and that hurts me in my soul, because
that's the only justification I have for living.

CN: How would you describe your life in this precise moment?

AS: Right now I don't know what's going to happen with me or what I have
to do. I don't represent anything in the cultural world, which makes me
feel very proud. I don't want to interfere with them in anything,
although I can't return to publishing in Cuba.

Luckily, this month an anthology of my stories is coming out in France.
I also have published another anthology in Spain, Italy and Miami. There
are professors and foreign academics who contact me because my writing
interests them.

As for the accusations against me, everything continues being very
murky. I was with my lawyer at the public prosecutor's office, and they
told us that the file had been sent to the State District Attorney's
office. We went there, and they didn't have it either, and finally they
told us that a lieutenant colonel of Villa Marista had taken it. When we
went there, they informed us that it wasn't there either, that they
didn't know anything about it. Finally, we couldn't learn where we could
find the file.

At least they had seen that they couldn't shut me up. Since the time I
began my blog, my life has changed completely, but I can tell you that
If I had known from the beginning everything that I would go through, I
would have done the same thing anyway, because now I feel freer in my
conscience. When my last moment arrives, I'm going to feel happy because
I did it. To have renounced the pleasures that they offered me to
satisfy my conscience, for assuming my civic life, it was something I
had to do. To not do it would have sickened me with disgust for myself,
and then it would be better to be dead.

Translated by Regina Anavy

July 4 2012

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