Havana, June 13 (RHC)-- Cuba´s National Hero, Jose Marti, has been inducted into the New York State Writers Hall of Fame, for his work as a poet, essayist, journalist and revolutionary philosopher.
“This year our committee is delighted to include the Cuban National hero Jose Marti, who lived in New York City for many years” said Rocco Staino, Director for the Center of the Book.
The Cuban creator isthe second Hispanic writer to enter the exclusive hall since the hall was established, after the Puerto Rican poet Julia de Burgos did in 2011, according to Cubadebate website.
The Cuban patriot lived in New York from 1880 to 1895, a period in which, in addition to his political work, he produced numerous newspaper articles, he wrote a serialized novel, composed poetry, wrote essays and published four issues of a children's magazine, La Edad de Oro(The Golden Age, 1889).
Marti´s nomination was promoted in recent years by Esther Allen, a Marti scholar and translator, and the Cuban-American historian Ada Ferrer, of New York University, both scholars and promoters of his work.
The induction into the select group took place during a ceremony, in which Ferrer and Lisandro Perez, a Cuban American sociologist and professor at John Jay College, were in charge of the opening speeches.
The New York State Writers Hall of Fame is a project of the Empire State Center for the Book that annually grants membership to several writers, living or dead, to highlight the rich literacy heritage of the State and to recognize the legacy of individual New York State writers.
Some of its most famous inductees are Walt Whitman, Herman Melville, Washington Irving, Henry James, Edith Wharton, Elizabeth Bishop, Marianne Moore, Mary McCarthy, Langston Hughes, and James Baldwin.
This year, along with Marti, five other writers were inducted, two of them also deceased: Ira Gershwin (1896-1983) who wrote many well-known songs with her brother George Gershwin; and E.L. Konigsburg (1930-2013), author of books for children.
The other three authors are the historian and journalist Russell Shorto (1959), Pulitzer Prize-winner novelist Colson Whitehead (1969) and Jacqueline Woodson (1963), current United States Ambassador for Young People´s Literature.
