Chapter 29 - Argentina and Cuba: The Politics of Reception

Summary

Borges declared that a writer’s political views were circumstantial and should not interfere with his or her literary creation and reputation. However, the cases of Argentina and Cuba from the mid-1940s on illustrate the influence of context on the reception of his work. The chapter focuses on three periods: the mid-1940s, the mid-1950s, and the first decade of the Cuban Revolution of 1959. In Argentina, the failure of the jury to award Borges the National Literary Award in 1942 was politically motivated. In Cuba, the first critical text on Borges appeared in 1944 and was influenced by the attitude to culture of the Origenes group, led by J Lezama Lima. In the following decade, and after the overthrowing of Perón, Borges’s work was criticized for being out of touch with Argentine realities, whereas in Cuba, a new literary magazine, Ciclón, expressed support for his work. After the Cuban Revolution, Borges’s name continued to be mentioned; however, after 1968, he would be censored in the island for two decades. The chapter concludes that writers and c ritics tend to read other writers in relation with their own cultural credos or projects.