CARLOS RIPOLL
585
La noche
de
los asesinos
(1965), which has been highly acclaimed
abroad. Other unknown young writers who have refused to compro–
mise their art chose to escape during the mass exodus in 1980.
The only theoretical option for those who cannot escape is
tam–
izdat,
or publishing abroad. But because nothing alarms the Cuban
authorities more, the measures taken to prevent it have been ex–
treme and, as a result, largely successful. Few works by dissident
Cuban writers have been printed abroad.
The poet Ernesto Dfaz Rodriguez succeeded in sending the
manuscript of his book
Un testimonio urgente
to the United States.
When it appeared the police took him out of prison, where he was
serving a sixty-year term, to interrogate him. In a letter sent through
the underground he recounts the experience: "At midnight last April
4 [1978], I was unexpectedly removed from my cell and taken to the
Department of State Security, where I was confined to the torture
chambers for thirty days. During that period I was forced to present
myself for numerous interrogations, all related to my literary work.
Once again I have been threatened . 'Your continuing to develop a
dissident cultural movement, especially abroad is intolerable, and
we will try to prevent it by all the means at our disposal,' they as–
sured me . For my part, I am not prepared to give in, and yes, to pay
whatever price may be necessary. To confine a man, to mistreat
him, destroy him for printing poems, is like destroying a gardener
for the 'horrendous crime' of growing roses . . ."
Angel Cuadra is an internationally celebrated poet whose works
have been translated into English, German, and Russian. He was
arrested and charged with conduct "against the security of the State"
after unsuccessfully seeking permission to emigrate from Cuba in
1967. Having served two-thirds of a fifteen-year sentence, he was
paroled in 1976, but then an anthology of his elegiac, apolitical poe–
try entitled
Impromptus
was published in the United States and , as a
result, his parole was revoked . From prison he wrote to the exiled
poet Juana Rosa Pita in May 1979, "there was no legal basis for this
new reprisal against me . Only that I am a poet; that the world
speaks my name; that I do not renounce my song. I do not put it on
bended knees, nor do I use it for other, political or partisan ends, but
only literary, universal, timeless ones." After participating in prison
"rehabilitation programs," Cuadra was to be released again in July
1979. However, when the authorities learned that he had managed
to smuggle out the manuscript of a new collection of his poetry which
appeared in English translation under the title
A Correspondence of
