“En épocas de crisis… cultivo un jardín en miniatura” / “At times of crisis… I cultivate a miniature garden.”
This book combines the poetry of Anna Lidia Vega Serova with the photography of Gonzalo Vidal. Presented in bilingual (Spanish original and English translation) format, in which text and image are brought together in poetic conversation. The poems deal with love and loss, hybrid identity, and the planting of our dreams in the midst of urban decay.
ISBN 978-1-914278-00-6, hardback 124pp. with colour photographs
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In this short clip, Anna Lidia herself reads one of the poems from the book, accompanied by Gonzalo’s photography:
Born in the former Soviet Union, to a Russian/Ukrainian mother and Cuban father, Anna Lidia settled definitively in Havana, Cuba in 1989. Originally a visual artist, it was her writing that brought her to international prominence, starting with her winning the Premio David in 1997 for her first collection of short stories, Bad Painting. Since then, she has become a recognised figure in the Cuban literary scene, with eight short-story collections and two novels (Noche de Ronda and Anima Fatua) to her name, participating in literary events throughout Europe and the Americas. She has also previously published two books of poetry: Retazos (de las hormigas) para los malos tiempos and Eslabones de un tiempo muerto. Through both her words and her painting, her work is noteworthy for its very personal reflection of daily life, grindingly yet magically real, as experienced in present-day Cuba.
Born in Chile, as a student of chemistry Gonzalo became involved in the clandestine struggle against Pinochet. Going into exile in 1975, he went to Romania, but in 1980 found what became his true home in Cuba. Since then, he has become a familiar face in Havana’s cultural life, establishing himself as a professional photographer in 1986 – first in the Silkscreen Print Workshop ‘René Portocarrero’, and then since 1991 as a freelancer. Over the years, he has had thirty-six personal exhibitions throughout Cuba, Latin America and Europe, alongside participation in over a hundred collective shows. He has gained a deserved reputation for his extensive portrayal of visual artists, jazz musicians and dance performers, with his photographs featuring in numerous publications. Alongside this, he has developed a distinctive eye for the magical and abstract in our everyday surroundings – in the streets, in the sky, and in the sea he loves to live beside.
“While I look at these images, I imagine that they play with time, they romp with the present dissolving into the mists of the past; while the poetry sings of what could be in the elusive and chimeric future.” (Racso Morejón)
“Anna Lidia tells her stories from the perspective of someone who knows that she will not be able to change the imperfect, rotten and contaminating reality. She simply tells of what is dirty, smelly, low, treacherous in that reality, starting from the damaging, malign, mephistophelic connotations of modernity in the individual who is marked by fate.” (Amir Valle)
