Ruin memory: Havana beyond the revolution

Abstract

This article defines ruin memory and offers a literary history of special period Havana, read, diagnosed, and represented with curiosity, wonder, and critique in a debate over utopia versus dystopia. Through an examination of the fictional, pedestrian movement of characters such as Victorio in Abilio Estévez’s Los palacios distantes and Usnavy in Achy Obejas’ Ruins, this text traces how the city is survived by locals, exoticized by tourists, and reconstructed by the imagination. Ruin memory asks us to think about the ruins and those living in them in terms of present and evacuated subsistence. This, in the end, is more than a depiction of the past or what has been lost. As we can see through the character development of Victorio and Usnavy, at issue is an urgent present in which all are struggling not just to live, but to live a better life through the discovery of relics and legends within the ruins.

Cet article définit le concept de la Mémoire des Ruines et offre une histoire littéraire de l’Epoque Singulière qu’a traversée La Havane; cette époque est lue, analysée et représentée avec curiosité, émerveillement et esprit critique dans le débat qui oppose utopie et dystopie. A travers un examen des mouvements fictifs et pédestres des personnages comme Victorio, dans Los palacios distantes de Abilio Estévez et Usnavy dans Ruins d’Achy Obeja, cet article montre comment les populations locales ont survécu à la ville, comment les touristes l’ont rendue exotique et comment l’imagination l’a reconstruite. La Mémoire des Ruines nous invite à penser aux ruines et à ceux qui les habitent en termes de substance présente et évacuée. Ceci, au final, est bien plus qu’une description du passé ou de ce qui a été perdu. Comme nous pouvons le voir à travers la maturation des personnalités de Victorio et Usnavy, le problème est celui de l’urgence du présent, dans lequel tous luttent non pas seulement pour vivre, mais pour vivre une vie meilleure, se livrant pour ce faire à l’excavation de reliques et de légendes du fond des ruines.

Keywords:

• Cuban literature
• special period Cuba
• Cuban diaspora
• ruin and revolution

Acknowledgements

I would like to extend my gratitude to a writing group conversation with Marni Sandweiss, Karen Sanchez-Eppler, Marisa Parham, Hilary Moss, Rhonda Cobham-Sander, Leah Hewitt, and Amelie Hastie for inciting me to continue with this essay. Special thanks go to Ruth Behar for her support, and for joining me on a trip to Havana, where she shared her own perspectives on this island; to Gabriel Arce-Rollins and his father for getting me a special copy of Bokova’s video; to Sandra Comstock, Amy Baron, and the blind reviewers at the journal for their thoughtful commentaries.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Lucía M. Suárez

Lucía M. Suárez is Associate Professor of Spanish at Amherst College. She co-edited, with Ruth Behar, The Portable Island: Cubans at Home in the World, and authored “Looking for Memory: A Diaspora Child’s Relationship to Havana”, in Un pueblo disperso: Dimensiones sociales y culturales de la diáspora cubana, edited by Jorge Duany.