ΒΙΡΓΙΛΙΟ ΠΙΝΙΕΡΑ

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Virgilio Piñera: “As soon as I was old enough, I demanded thought be translated into something more than spit spraying or arm waving; I found three fairly dirty qualities of which I would never be able to clean myself: I learned that I was poor, that I was homosexual, and that I liked art.
The first because one fine day they told us that ‘nothing could be found for lunch.’ The second because, also one fine day, I felt a wave of blushing cross my face when discovering, throbbing under his pants, the swollen organ of one of my numerous uncles. The third because, on an equally fine day, I heard my very fat cousin convulsively griping a glass in her hand singing the toast of ‘La Traviata.’”

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At the One-Eyed Cat (1967)

At the One-Eyed Cat there are no cats.
At the One-Eyed Cat there are people,
with their eyes like binoculars,
mouths like vents,
hands like tentacles,
feet like detectors.
At the One-Eyed Cat
there’s a night within night,
with a moon that emerges for some,
a sun that shines for others
and a cock that crows for all.
At the One-Eyed Cat
there’s the seat of happiness,
the seat of misfortune
and also the terrible seat of hope.
At the One-Eyed Cat,
will I dare to say it?
there’s a cloth to wipe away tears,
and there’s also
—I scarcely dare it—
a mirror to look at yourself face to face.
At the One-Eyed Cat
on a certain night two lovers say yes to each other,
and at the One-Eyed Cat
another night they killed the one they’d loved.
At the One-Eyed Cat
there’s an expectant moment
when the imagined lover
makes his appearance.
He casts an amorous glance and says:
“I belong to the one who waits for me!”
And then the feeling reaches the heart,
at the One-Eyed Cat plus Revolution.

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by Virgilio Piñera, tr. by Mark Weiss

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Virgilio Piñera Llera (August 4, 1912 – October 18, 1979) was a Cuban author, playwright, poet, short-story writer, and essayist.
Among his most famous poems are "La isla en peso" (1943), and "La gran puta" (1960). He was a member of the "Origenes" literary group, although he often differed with the conservative views of the group. In the late 1950s he co-founded the literary journal Ciclón. Following a long exile in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Piñera returned to Cuba in 1958, months before Fidel Castro took power.
His work includes essays on literature and literary criticism, several collections of short stories compiled under the title of Cold Tales, a great number of dramatic works, and three novels: La carne de René (Rene's Flesh), Presiones y Diamantes (Pressures and Diamonds), and Las pequeñas maniobras (Small manoeuvres). His work is seen today as a model by new generations of Cuban and Latin American writers. Some believe that his work influenced that of Reinaldo Arenas, who wrote in his memoir Before Night Falls of Piñera's time in Argentina and friendship there with Witold Gombrowicz.
The magazine Unión posthumously published autobiographical writing by Piñera in which he discussed how he concluded he was gay. However, his work can not be reduced to his open discussions on homosexuality in a time when such a topic was taboo, especially in the Spanish Caribbean. Piñera's literary and cultural perspective went beyond sexuality, to express concerns on national and continental identity, philosophical approaches to theater, writing and politics. This focus drew fire from the Spanish American literary establishment of his time, including Cuban poets Cintio Vitier and Roberto Fernandez Retamar, and leaders like Fidel Castro and Che Guevara.
Due to Piñera's social points of view and especially to his homosexuality, he was censured by the revolution, and died without any official recognition. As more of his work has been translated into English, Piñera's work has been rediscovered by American academia as a testimony of 20th century resistance against totalitarian systems. (en.wikipedia.org)

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