Co-President of the Miguel Angel Asturias Foundation visiting Prensa Latina (Photos: PL)
Havana, January 7 (RHC)-- The Miguel Angel Asturias Foundation of Guatemala and the Prensa Latina news agency agreed Friday to strengthen ties and cooperate in promoting the work and thoughts of the 1967 Nobel Literature Prize winner.
Sandino Asturias, grandson of the renowned writer and co-president of the Foundation, visited the headquarters of this media in Havana, where he talked with its president, Luis Enrique Gonzalez, about the possibility of promoting collaboration based on the historical relationship between the author of El señor Presidente and Prensa Latina.
The also coordinator of the Center for Studies on Guatemala recalled that his grandfather was one of the Latin American intellectuals who at the beginning of the triumph of the Cuban Revolution in 1959, supported the creation of Prensa Latina and defended the need for its existence in the face of attacks from the United States.
From those years, he highlighted the strong ties established with the Cuban intelligentsia, with journalist Jorge Ricardo Masetti, founder of the agency; and with Haydée Santamaría, at the head of Casa de las Américas, an institution that always promoted the work of the great writers of the continent.
Both parties agreed to promote information and photographic exchanges and discussed possible projects for the mounting of exhibitions on Asturias' relationship with Cuba and the presentation of some of his books on the Caribbean island.
The Guatemalan academic underlined that, besides rescuing the figure of the prominent journalist and diplomat, another priority of the Foundation is to encourage the knowledge of his anti-imperialist thought.
In this sense, he called attention to the recent release of works that deal with this theme, such as Week-end in Guatemala (1956), and the so-called Banana Trilogy, about the exploitation of indigenous people in the plantations, made up novels Viento Fuerte (1950), El papa Verde (1954) and Los Ojos de Los enterrados (1960).
He pointed out that within his prolific literary production, his grandfather dealt with the situation in Latin America during the era of military dictatorships, the intervention of the United States in Central America, and especially in Guatemala.
Sandino Asturias said that the new Foundation is very interested in reactivating links with Cuba, so this Friday he will also meet at Casa de las Americas with its president, Abel Prieto; at the Fidel Castro Center with its director, Rene Gonzalez; and will visit the headquarters of the Creart channel, of the Ministry of Culture.
