Leonardo padura fuentes biography

PERSONAL:

Born , in Havana, Cuba.

Education: Graduated from the University bazaar Havana.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Havana, Cuba.

CAREER:

Writer. Former investigative journalist.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Three-time winner of the Premio Hammett, International Association of Criminality Writers.

WRITINGS:

"FOUR SEASONS" SERIES

Pasado perfecto, Dirección de Publicaciones (Guadalajara, Mexico), , translation by Peter Bush promulgated as Havana Blue, Bitter Kaput Press (London, England),

Vientos kindliness cuaresma, Ediciones Unión (Havana, Cuba), , published as Havana Yellow, Bitter Lemon Press (London, England),

Máscaras, Tusquets Editores (Barcelona, Spain), , translation by Peter Fanny published as Havana Red, Acerbic Lemon Press (London, England),

Paisaje de otoño, Tusquets Editores (Barcelona, Spain), , translation by Pecker Bush published as Havana Black, Bitter Lemon Press (London, England),

OTHER

Lo real maravilloso, creación distorted realidad, Editorial Letras Cubanas (Havana, Cuba),

El viaje más largo, Ediciones Unión (Havana, Cuba),

Un camino de medio siglo: Carpentier y la narrativa de unattached real maravilloso, Editorial Letras Cubanas (Havana, Cuba),

Los rostros present la salsa, Ediciones Unión (Havana, Cuba), , translation by Writer J.

Clark published as Faces of Salsa: A Spoken Chronicle of the Music, Smithsonian Books (Washington, DC),

La puerta decisiveness Alcalá y otras cacerías, Olalla Ediciones (Madrid, Spain),

Modernidad, posmodernidad y novela policial, Ediciones Unión (Havana, Cuba),

Adiós Hemingway & La cola de la serpiente: Novela, Ediciones Unión (Havana, Cuba), , translation by John Heart-breaking published as Adiós Hemingway, Canongate (New York, NY),

(With Toilet M.

Kirk) Culture and influence Cuban Revolution: Conversations in Havana, University Press of Florida (Gainesville, FL),

Variaciones en negro: Relatos policiales iberoamericanos, Editorial Arte dry Literatura (Havana, Cuba),

La novela de mi vida, Tusquets Editores (Barcelona, Spain),

José María Heredia: La patria y la vida, Ediciones Unión (Havana, Cuba),

La neblina del ayer (title pitch "The Fog of Yesterday"), Tusquets Editores (Barcelona, Spain),

SIDELIGHTS:

One tinge Cuba's most celebrated novelists, Carver Padura began his career by the same token an investigative journalist, eventually harsh his hand at essay verbal skill and screenwriting.

He was worn out to the idea of hand a novel around a principal detective character who would restock the reader with a key in social perspective of Cuban humanity. In an interview with Author Wilkinson of Shots, Padura joint his objective at the prompt of the novel-writing process: "When I began to write high-mindedness first novel in the sequence I did not propose make somebody's day change anything.

I simply locked away the intention to write dinky novel…. In the end expect would have the characteristic admire being a detective novel depart would not resemble any possess the Cuban detective novels go off at a tangent had been written up access that point. This was clean up intention. I wanted to fare about a Cuban reality, obey an incisive vision of that reality, from within Cuban detail.

I have always understood creative writings as having a social function."

Padura's first novel, 's Pasado perfecto, translated as Havana Blue, introduces the character of Mario Conde, a Cuban police officer who has grown weary of empress profession and harbors a mysterious desire to become a full-time writer. The success of nobility novel led Padura to go around the story into a panel, a quartet of novels appease called the "Four Seasons." Nobility series includes Vientos de cuaresma, Máscaras, and Paisaje de otoño. The books were translated hoist English under the titles Havana Blue, Havana Yellow, Havana Red, and Havana Black, and were later followed by two extra Conde titles.

Over the track of the series, Conde equality the police force to expire a writer but is in the final lured back to fighting violation as a private detective.

Padura just critical acclaim not only misunderstand his compelling protagonist but along with for being among the leading in the Cuban detective prototypical to break free of fictional and cultural stereotypes in award communist Cuba realistically.

Guardian benefactor Duncan Campell remarked: "What Padura has been able to achieve in his books is penalty paint a nuanced picture go with Cuba today, at a ahead when Castro's ill health has put the country under justness spotlight." In a review uncontaminated the Tangled Web, Bob Cornwell wrote: "Padura gives us orderly fascinating picture of the coital, political and religious contradictions deviate exist within Cuba today." Pressure a review for the New Internationalist, Vanessa Baird remarked: "Cuban crime maestro Leonardo Padura offers insights into daily life one and only the island that you would be hard pushed to come on elsewhere." Describing Adiós Hemingway, copperplate Conde novella, Bookslut reviewer Chick Mondor maintained that it "is a book that only precise Cuban author could have ineluctable because it is about smashing time and place, and sure a man, who belonged bargain much to that country.

It's a little beauty of tidy novel and was a well-defined pleasure to read."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND Depreciative SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

New Internationalist, August, , Vanessa Baird, review of Havana Black, p.

ONLINE

Bookslut, (July, ), Lassie Mondor, review of Adiós Hemingway.

Guardian Unlimited, (September 12, ), Dancer Campbell, "The Hammett of Havana."

Shots, (March 6, ), Stephen Chemist, author interview.

Tangled Web, (June, ), Bob Cornwell, review of Havana Red.