Severo Sarduy (Cuba) 1937-1993

Severo Sarduy (Cuba)

1937-1993

Severo Sarduy studied medicine, art, and literature at the University of Havana, and, with Guillermo Cabrera Infante, was one of the few writers involved in the fight against Batista.

     At an early age he was a writer for Lunces de Revolución, the official organization of the 26th of July Movement.

     In 1960 he received a government grant to study art history in Europe and left the country, eventually settling in Paris. There Sarduy quickly became respected for his work in literary theory and linguistics, and became friends with French scholars such as Roland Barthes Jacques Derrida, and other associated with the literary journal Tel Quel. 

     He was chosen as the editor of the Latin American collection of Editions du Seuil, and through that position introduced Gabriel García Marquez, José Lezama Lima and others to the French.       

     Meanwhile, Sarduy was himself writing. His first novel, Gestos, was published by Seix Barral in 1963, and he followed it with the highly experimental De donde son las cantantes in 1967 and the essays of Escrito sobre un cuerpo (1969), and the novel Cobra (1972), all translated into English.

     His first book of poetry was Overdose in 1972, which he followed the next year, with Big Bang. Both of these works were formally and linguistically experimental. But later works, while retaining their experimental subject matter, looked to a highly Baroque style that was particularly influenced by the Spanish poet Gongora. Un testigo fugaz y disfrazado, Epitafros, and Daquari were highly charged works with homoerotic content.

     Sarduy was also an artist of some note, and had several shows in Paris. He died in 1993 of AIDS.

BOOKS OF POETRY 

Flamenco (Stuttgart: Manus Presse, 1970); Mood Indigo (Stuttgart: Manus Presse, 1970); Overdose (Las Palmas: Inventarios Provisionales, 1972); Big Bang (Paris: Fata Morgana, 1973; Barcelona: Tusquets Editor, 1974); Un testigo fugaz y disfrazado (Barcelona: Editions del Mall, 1985; Madrid: Hiperión, 1993); Epitafios. Imitación Aforismos (Miami: Ediciones Universal, 1994); Daiquiri (Santa Cruz de Tenerife: Universidad Menendez Pelayo, 1994)

POETRY IN ENGLISH

Footwork: Selected Poems, trans. by David Francis (Circumference Books, 2021)

For another biography and a poem in translation, go here: 

https://poetrysociety.org/poems-essays/in-their-own-words/severo_sarduy

For four other poems by Sarduy, go here: 

https://exchanges.uiowa.edu/issues/fall-2018/four-poems-by-severo-sarduy/