British Culture Week in Cuba celebrates British fantasy literature
British fantasy literature and the author J.R.R. Tolkien, on the 50th anniversary of his death, will be the focus of British Culture Week in Cuba from 4 to 10 December.
Havana will welcome this eleventh edition, which celebrates the UK’s rich literary heritage and knowledge of its most important works, with a wide-ranging programme of workshops, concerts, film screenings, competitions and theatre performances.
Speaking at a press conference, the British Ambassador to Cuba, Sir George Hollingbery, Knight Commander of the Order of St Michael and St George, KCMG, said he was pleased to know that the work of the British writer, poet, philologist, linguist and university professor Tolkien was well known and admired in Cuba.
Among the proposed programmes, he particularly recommended the concert Tolkien in Havana, inspired by the work of Canadian composer and saxophonist Howard Shore, author of the soundtrack to the Lord of the Rings trilogy, which fuses Cuban genres such as danzón, mambo and chachachá. «I’ve been to two of his rehearsals and I’m very excited,» he added.
The Teatro Martí stage will host the performance on Thursday 7 December, with clarinetist, composer and arranger Janio Abreu Morcarte and his group Aire de Concierto, together with the Orquesta de Cámara de La Habana, conducted by maestro Daiana García, and the Coro del Teatro Lírico Nacional de Cuba, conducted by maestro Denisse Falcón.
Details of the programme were given by Anne Aichroth, Political Officer at the British Embassy, who commented on the official opening on 5 December at 4pm at the Castillo de la Real Fuerza in Havana’s historic centre.
Attendees will be able to see the visual arts exhibition TocoGrifo, Tolkien and the Imagined World, featuring large-scale drawings by young artists aged 12 to 21 who won prizes in a competition organised as part of the celebrations. There will also be live British music, produced by Vincent Alexander.
He referred to the invitation of the Cinemateca de Cuba to show the extended version of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, this Friday, 1 December, Saturday, 2 December and Sunday, 3 December, in the 23 y 12 cinema of El Vedado in the capital, starting at 2 p.m., with free admission.
Another highlight is the Fantasy Writing Workshop, now in its third year, organised by the Centro de Promoción Literaria Onelio Jorge Cardoso, on Wednesday 6 December.
Also on the programme is the children’s theatre company La Colmenita, with a revival of their show Cinderella According to the Beatles, on 9 and 10 December.
To help promote the famous fantasy works of authors such as Tolkien and C.S. Lewis, the British Embassy has acquired more than one hundred original books, which will be given away as prizes at various events and donated to local projects.
This eleventh edition of British Culture Week in Cuba is a celebration of the creativity, diversity and transforming power of fantasy literature.
Translated by Luis E. Amador Dominguez
