BY VANESSA KNAPTON
LOS ANGELES - After receiving more than 20 invitations for campus speaking engagements from university professors and student groups nationwide, Norberto Codina, a Cuban poet and editor of the magazine La Gaceta de Cuba, received a visa from the U.S. Interests Section in Havana.
The renowned writer arrived in Miami September 26. From there he flew to Washington, D.C., to attend the Latin American Studies Association (LASA) conference. Codina, who is also a member of the national council of the Union of Writers and Artists of Cuba (UNEAC), was invited to participate in the September 28-30 LASA event by the organization's president, Cynthia McClintock.
After the conference, Codina will spend four days in the Washington area. His visit there will begin with a talk on art and culture today at an introductory class on Latin American Studies at George Washington University. The tour will include poetry readings on campuses in Washington and Gettysburg, Maryland, and at El Centro de Arte (The Art Center) in D.C.
His stay in the U.S. capital will conclude with a public lecture on literature and culture in Cuba at George Washington University, sponsored by the campus International Cultural Affairs Committee, the Multi-Cultural Affairs Committee, and the Arts Committee of the Program Board. The D.C. Hands Off Cuba Coalition is helping to publicize this event.
From Washington, Codina will travel to Los Angeles. The program here includes lectures on arts and culture in Cuba at Midnight Special and Arroyo Books, two well-known bookstores in Los Angeles. He will also speak on a number of college campuses, including California State University in Los Angeles and Long Beach and the Otis College of Art and Design.
In a special event on October 10, the Cuban poet will speak at the University of California Los Angeles on the role of art in revolutionary politics. October 10, which coincides with the anniversary of the initiation of the struggle for Cuban independence from Spain in 1868, was declared an international day in solidarity with Cuba by a 3,000-strong international solidarity conference that took place in Havana last November. This year's celebration will focus on the commemoration of the centennial of the death in combat of Cuba's national hero José Martí, who was killed during a battle in the war against Spanish colonialism.
After Los Angeles, Codina is scheduled to visit Houston and the Rio Grande Valley area in Texas. He will end his tour with a visit to the New York area.
The UNEAC leader, 43, has been the editor of La Gaceta de Cuba, the foremost journal of arts and letters in the Caribbean country, since 1988. The magazine is distributed by Pathfinder Press in the United States. In the past 20 years several collections of Codina's poetry have been published. A este tiempo llamarán antiguo (In A Time They Will Call Old-Fashioned) won the David Poetry Award in Cuba. This year the Cuban publisher Unión will print a poetry anthology edited by Codina, titled Los ríos de la mañana (The Morning Rivers).
Those interested in the tour of the Cuban writer and editor can contact the Norberto Codina Lectures Committee, c/o John Shapley, Graduate Students Association, 301 Kerchkoff, UCLA, 310 Westwood Plaza, Los Angeles, CA 90024. Tel: (310) 206-8512; fax: (310) 206-7612.