Professor Menton is concerned with providing an overall view of the historical and social perspectives that go into the making of Cuba’s contemporary fictional prose. As such, his book explores the relationships between the Cuban Revolution and the narrative literature that has been written during, about, or from this unique and momentous political experience. A study of prose fiction in particular, says the author, provides the emotional ingredient—everpresent in art—that is indispensable for a total understanding of history. Menton thus sets out to record the over two hundred volumes of novels and short stories published between 1959 and 1973, explicitly casting himself in the role of the literary historian and relating the fictional works to the social environment in which they were created, outside as well as inside Cuba.
The volume is divided into five parts that deal not only with the novel and short story written in the island, but also with “antirevolutionary” narrative published by exiled authors, and with works produced by foreign writers that show the international repercussion of the Cuban struggle and the new system created by the Revolution. Menton treats the problem of four distinct approaches present in a scant fifteen-year period by a thematic and stylistic classification that transcends generational considerations: the struggle against tyranny (1959-1960), exorcism and existentialism (1961-1965), epos, experimentation, and escapism (1966-1970), and the ideological novel and short story (1971-present). One of the most interesting parts is “Literature and Revolution,” where the author reviews evidence of the state of relations between the artist or intellectual and Marxist ideology as it has been institutionalized in Cuba in the last years. By doing so, Menton continues the trend in documented analysis initiated by observers and critics such as Lourdes Casal, and shows the enormous impact of Cuban pronouncements on the Latin American literary scene with appraisals from both ends of the political spectrum.
Some of the critical opinions expressed in this book will no doubt anger a few writers and ideologists from the two camps (especially in the controversial area of “politicized” pro or anti works). Nonetheless, Menton’s avowed objectivity in matters of aesthetic judgment prevails in this panorama of Cuban narrative. Details such as repeated misnamings and the erroneous connection of Guillermo Cabrera Infante’s parody with José Martí’s Ismaelillo do not detract from the usefulness of Prose Fiction of the Cuban Revolution. The brevity of the schematic conclusion, which might have been turned into a longer essay of solid critical substance if developed as such, is to be lamented. But the abundance of factual documentation, the simplicity of format and presentation of the material make this volume a valuable contribution to contemporary research on Latin America and a book worth reading.
