Críticas Magazine

Adriana V. Lopez

Winner of the Premio Alfaguara 2008, the fantastic, Antonio Orlando Rodríguez
March 5, 2008

I’m extremely happy for Antonio Orlando Rodríguez for winning this year’s Premio Alfaguara with Chiquita, his biographic novel about a tiny Cuban ballerina named Espiridiona Cenda who was only 2 feet 2 inches tall.
     Rodríguez, a prolific writer of four books of fiction, a play and 14 children's books, will finally become a recognized name in Spanish-language letters and earn a pretty sum of 118.700 Euros($175,000) for winning. Pretty good for a self-proclaimed skeptic of literary contests whose agent insisted he enter.
     Rodríguez, who was born in Cuba in 1956, has lived in Colombia, but has resided in Miami for the last 8 years, has an ease for fantasy and flair in his writing---sometimes bordering on the absurd. I was first turned on to him when HarperCollins acquired the rights to his last novel Aprendices de brujo/The Last Masquerade, which he remarkably wrote in both English and Spanish for the Rayo publication. The novel was a decadent ride into 1920’s Bogotá and Havana alongside two handsome and rich Colombian dandies who simply must see the Italian diva Eleonora Duse for her last performance in Havana. With a keen sociological eye on the gay world and the customs and dialects of the era in both conservative Bogotá and ultra loose Havana circles, they’re also some pretty over the top erotic scenes and plot turns depicted in such a fantastic way, that when I found out that he also wrote children’s literature, I wasn’t surprised.
     In an interview with Críticas in 2005, he said that back in Havana he belonged, along with Daína Chaviano, Chely Lima, and Alberto Serret, to a literary group aimed at cultivating fantasy, the absurd, and science fiction. "I have a hard time writing a completely realistic story," said Antonio Orlando Rodríguez, referring to Aprendices de Brujo. "As soon as I let my guard down, everything, from ghosts to Chinese wizards to wandering souls, pops up in my plots."
     The man just knows how to let his imagination run wild. I’m curious to read what he does with the strange life of this tiny dancer. Besides being a fictional account of Chiquita’s life, the novel is also supposed to be a “Forrest Gump-like” ride through the highlights of Cuban history. Should be fun.

Posted by Adriana V. Lopez on March 5, 2008 | Comments (0)