Fayad Jamís Bookstore Hosts Exciting Events This Week

The second week of July begins at Havana’s Fayad Jamís Bookstore with two engaging events featuring journalist and literary critic Fernando Rodríguez Sosa. Located on Calle Obispo in Old Havana, the bookstore attracts a large audience each month, eager to meet authors, discuss intriguing topics, and participate in meaningful dialogues with writers and artists.

This Wednesday, the focus will be on the book Vengo de todas partes by Edilberto Rodríguez Tamayo, published by Ediciones En Vivo, an imprint of Cuban Radio and Television. The presentation will include the publisher’s director, Norma Gálvez, and the author himself, a poet and storyteller from Holguín.

The event will celebrate this tribute volume dedicated to two local media outlets in Holguín: the radio station La Voz del Níquel and the television channel Moa TV. Vengo de todas partes features a selection of scripts written by Rodríguez Tamayo for these outlets, along with texts originally published on social media that were later adapted for radio and television, according to a press release from the Cuban Book Institute.

Fidel Troya García, president of the Cuban Journalists’ Union in eastern Cuba, remarked, Vengo de todas partes is a compelling work, both in structure and subject matter. Its title evokes Martí and his vision of human betterment—an ideal that, in my view, permeates each chapter of the book.”

A veteran of Cuban radio since the 1990s, Rodríguez Tamayo has served as an announcer, scriptwriter, and program director. His work has earned more than 30 awards at both provincial and national levels. He is also the author of several other titles, including the short story collections Berenice que estás por los cielos (which won the Abril Prize in 1994), La casa colgada, Tristes caballos azules, and the poetry collection El tiempo de tu ciudad.

Tribute to Dr. Armando Hart Dávalos

On Thursday, the bookstore will host a tribute to Dr. Armando Hart Dávalos on the 95th anniversary of his birth, as part of the ongoing event El elogio oportuno. Participants will include Héctor Hernández Pardo, Deputy Director of the Office of the Martí Program and Coordinator of the José Martí Project of International Solidarity, who worked closely with Hart, along with Yasel Toledo, President of the Hermanos Saíz Association, which represents Cuba’s young artistic and literary vanguard.

The evening will also feature musical performances of Cuban compositions by tenor Bernardo Lichilín.

A staunch opponent of the Batista dictatorship and a member of the July 26 Movement, Armando Hart Dávalos (Havana, 1930–2017) held significant political and cultural positions after the 1959 revolution, including Minister of Education and Culture, Director of the Office of the Martí Program, and President of the José Martí Cultural Society.

This event is organized by the Fayad Jamís Bookstore in collaboration with the Roberto Fernández Retamar Martí Club and the Culture and Social Sciences sections of the Economic Society of Friends of the Country.

El elogio oportuno—which aims to honor writers, books, historical events, and institutions marking milestone anniversaries—takes its name from a famous aphorism by José Martí: “Timely praise encourages merit; the lack of it discourages,” published in Patria in April 1892.

Translated by Luis E. Amador Dominguez