Norge Espinosa, "Una Isla en Tonos de Rosa: Otros Cuerpos y Deseos para Pensar a Cuba"

In this presentation Cuban poet, playwright, and gay activist Norge Espinosa will analyze recent changes in the dynamics of the acceptance of sexual diversity in Cuba. Relying on literary, filmic, and scenic text, and his own experience as an organizer of the 2008 and 2009 World Anti-Homophobia Day, Espinosa examines how the work of artists/activists have begun to create new perspectives of the national imaginaries. These imaginings of Cuba include, but also transcend, issues of sexual identity. In a moment when the nation is undergoing strenuous changes the key question is which one of these various perspectives on sexual diversity might be part of a future Cuba.

Norge Espinosa is a prominent Cuban poet and playwright who was among the first writers to experiment with homosexual themes in the late 1980s with his widely anthologized poem “Vestido de novia” (“Dressed Up as a Bride”), written when he was a teenager. He has published Las breves tribulaciones (The Brief Tribulations, 1992 winner of the National Prize of Poetry from the Cuban magazine El Caimán Barbudo) and Las estrategias del páramo (Bleak Plateau Strategies). He has also written and published several plays inlcuding Romanza del lirio (Romance of the Lily), La virgencita de bronce (The Little Bronze Virgin), Ícaros (Icarus), and Cintas de seda (Silk Ribbons). He has worked closely as a dramatist and author for Teatro El Público, one of the most acclaimed theatre groups of the in Havana, and has organized events on gay and lesbian culture in Cuba. He has been invited to the International Writing Program of University of Iowa in 2001, and to workshops at the Royal Court Theater in London  in 2003, 2004, and 2007.