Calabash International Literary Festival presents “Jubilation 50,” a celebration of Jamaica’s 50th anniversary of independence. International literary figures and artists from Africa, the Caribbean, North America, and Europe will converge on May 25-27, 2012, at Jakes Resort in Treasure Beach in St. Elizabeth, Jamaica.

This major literary event presents concerts, recitals, art exhibition, and the participation of leading writers. The selection of authors and performers related to Caribbean arts and culture include Jacqueline Bishop, Loretta Collins, Carolyn Cooper, Michael “Ibo” Cooper, Christine Craig, Fred D’Aguiar, Marcia Douglas, Garfield Ellis, Steve Golding, Colin Grant, Sadie Jones, Alecia McKenzie, Orlando Patterson, Patricia Powell, Olive Senior, Seretse Small, Sonjah Stanley Niaah, and Kerry Young.

The Calabash International Literary Festival’s mission is to transform the literary arts in the Caribbean by being the region’s best-managed producer of workshops, seminars and performances.

For more information, see http://www.calabashfestival.org/2012/index.html

For more information on authors, see http://www.calabashfestival.org/2012/authors.html

In the framework of the exhibition Who Sci-Fi More Than Us? Kunsthal KAdE in cooperation with the organization Framer Framed organizes an “Artist Talk” on May 26, 2012, from 2:00-4:00pm. Free and open to the public, this conversation will take place at Kunsthal KAdE, located at Smallepad 3, 3811 MG in Amersfoort, Utrecht, The Netherlands.

The artists invited to participate are: Pepon Osorio (born in Puerto Rico, living and working in US), Tirzo Martha (born, living and working in Curaçao), Mario Benjamin (born, living and working in Haiti), Jean-Ulrick Désert (born in Haiti, living and working in in Germany) and Remy Jungerman (born in Suriname, living and working in The Netherlands).

Description: In conversation with the moderator Francio Guadeloupe, five participating artists will present their work in relation with the Caribbean artistic and cultural context. Migration, colonialism and diaspora are historical and political elements of the region and they play an important role in some of the art works shown. During the talk, the artists will tell how their artistic practice deals with these themes.

As a foretaste of their theatrical piece Water under the Bridge on the industrial history of Curaçao, the duo mother and son Glenda Martinus and T. Martinus will reflect on the Artist Talk by presenting a poetry summary and a live drawing.

For original announcement, see http://framerframed.nl/en/projecten/close-encounters-of-the-caribbean-kind/

For more information (in Dutch), see http://www.kunsthalkade.nl/

The U.S. Treasury Department placed certain restrictions on trips to Cuba by non-Cuban Americans on so-called “people to people” visits, saying that the revisions will “help to deter abuses.” Although the article uses the word “abuses” about five times, it never explains what the abuses are. The closest it comes to giving an example of “abuses” by U.S. citizens who travel for personal reasons was a reference quoting Marco Rubio who complained about someone who had scheduled salsa lessons every night. Oh dear, I can just see this among the new travel restrictions, “Dancing prohibited.” And this is progress? Scary.

Complaints of abuses of such trips — they must be for “educational” purposes, never for tourism — have dogged the program since President Barack Obama approved it last year in a bid to increase Americans’ engagement with regular Cubans.

Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., drew laughter during a speech in Washington last year when he read the schedule for one such trip, showing salsa dancing sessions every night. Other tours have met with Cuban government ministers and even a daughter of ruler Raúl Castro.

Rubio put a block on Roberta Jacobson’s nomination as the top U.S. diplomat for Latin American until the Obama administration addressed some of the myriad complaints. Jacobson was sworn in earlier this month. “I think it’s progress … because the changes require closer reviews of the itineraries,” Rubio said. “But I still have concerns about the program in general, because it is difficult to manage and avoid abuses.”

Treasury spokesman John Sullivan said the department’s Office of Foreign Assets Controls, which enforces sanctions on Cuba, revised the regulations for those seeking OFAC licenses to organize trips “in part because of reports we received.” He did not detail the “reports” but added that the changes “will provide clarity to applicants and licensees seeking renewals, facilitate OFAC’s review of license applications and help to deter abuses by licensees.”

For original article, see http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/05/15/2801235/us-changes-requirements-for-some.html

Photo from http://www.guardian.co.uk/havana-club/sounds-of-the-city

Ediciones Torremozas announces a new collection of essays, Canarias, Cuba y Francia: Los exilios literarios de Nivaria Tejera (2012) [The Canary Islands, Cuba and France: The literary exiles of Nivaria Tejera].

Description: On March 2008, a group of academics, writers and artists gathered in New York to analyze the literary works of Cuban/Canary Islander Nivaria Tejera. This text, Canarias, Cuba y Francia: Los exilios literarios de Nivaria Tejera, is the result of this meeting. In these essays, the contributors analyze the meaning of Tejera’s work in Spanish and French letters, her experience as a triple political exile, the historical context of her novels, and the impact that repressive political regimes have on artists and writers. As shown in the reflections of the critics who contribute to this book, Nivaria Tejera is undoubtedly one of the most unique literary voices of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries on both sides of the Atlantic.

The book includes essays by Madeline Cámara, Helena Aráujo, Lourdes Gil, María Díaz Vega, Willian Navarrete, Marie Houdayer, Andrea Morris, Carol Maier, Jason Weiss, Mabel Cuesta, José Triana, Benoit Verhille, Antonio de la Rosa, Pío E. Serrano, and Nivaria Tejera.

For more information, see http://www.torremozas.com/Canarias-Cuba-Francia-Los-exilios-literarios-de-Nivaria-Tejera

The New York Daily News reports that Hostos Community College President Felix Matos Rodriguez will be grand marshal of this year’s Puerto Rican Day Parade. The Puerto Rican Day Parade will start at 11:00am on June 10, 2012, and run north on Fifth Avenue from 44th to 79th Streets in Manhattan, New York.

The vibrant Puerto Rican Day Parade will return to Fifth Ave. next month with the president of Hostos Community College leading the festivities.

Felix Matos Rodriguez was named grand marshal of the parade Tuesday to complement this year’s theme, which celebrates Puerto Ricans and their higher education achievements. “It’s really an honor bestowed on the college as a whole,” Rodriguez said.

Rodriguez grew up in Puerto Rico and graduated cum laude in Latin American studies from Yale before earning a Ph.D. in history from Columbia University.

Original post (and photo on left) from http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/president-hostos-community-college-lead-puerto-rican-day-parade-article-1.1078996#ixzz1v0Yinqpg (accessed via The National Institute for Latino Policy, http://www.latinopolicy.org/ )

Top photo from http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/06/09/puerto-rican-parade-loses-a-marshal-and-a-few-blocks/

Lissette Alvarez presented Tuesday in the United States her 50th album “Soles” (Suns), whose title cut means something very special for the Cuban singer. “I performed that song many years ago but I never recorded it – it’s a number like an anthem with a mantra that goes ‘though we don’t see it, the sun is always there,’” the artist told Efe.
The new album is dominated by romantic ballads with “organic arrangements that can last through time – strings, piano, guitar and songs all about love,” Alvarez said.
The singer-songwriter said she was very eager to debut “Soles” because she went several years without recording a disc of her own and this album was in production for 2 1/2 years.
“I’m very excited, I hope all the people who like my music enjoy it and that those who are unacquainted with it also enjoy it so they stay with me,” said the artist, who has 12 gold records to her credit.
In June, the singer will give a concert in San Juan, Puerto Rico, where she will promote “Soles” and in the not-too-distant future she would love to promote the disc around Central and South America in countries like Peru, Venezuela and Argentina.
Besides promoting her disc, Alvarez, who is married to fellow musician Willy Chirino, has plans “for television, concerts and theater. We’re in talks for doing theater and television in different countries.”
Lissette has acted in telenovelas and films, including “Winter Kills” with Jeff Bridges and Anthony Perkins, and two Emmy-winning U.S. television specials.

For the original report go to http://www.laht.com/article.asp?ArticleId=506545&CategoryId=13003

Lorena Escalera had danced as a stunning Beyoncé look-alike sporting golden chest armour and vibrant hair, and on Memorial Day was scheduled to perform Jennifer Lopez’s latest hit “Dance Again,” her friend and promoter Jose Herrera recalled. But as Herrera lit memorial candles with more than 60 mourners outside Escalera’s home Monday night, he shook his head in shock that the 25-year-old transgender celebrity had perished early Saturday morning in a fire in her apartment on 47 Furman Ave, as Meredith Hoffman reports in this article fro DNAinfo.com.

“We’re trying to make sense of it,” said Herrera, 42, of the incident, which is still under investigation by the FDNY. “She was like you’d see in a music video. She was beautiful outside and inside.”

Escalera, known as Lorena Xtravaganza, was considered a star of the House of Xtravaganza, a renowned performance, artistic and support community of about 130 LGBTQ members with talents ranging from music to poetry, said Herrera, a member of the group. The “father” of the house, Jose Gutierrez, formerly danced with Madonna, Herrera noted.

“It is a family,” said Herrera, a promoter with the club Peligro who often handled Escalera’s booking.

“She’s our main act,” he said of Escalera, who toured in Spain in Ibiza after moving to New York from her hometown in Puerto Rico several years ago.

“She was trying to realize her dream to be a woman, and she did,” said Escalera’s friend, Giovanny Suarez, 29, at Monday night’s memorial.

“I’m shocked, I always wonder why this happened to such a beautiful woman. She should be here performing now,” added Suarez, who first met Escalera in Puerto Rico when she was a man named Lester.

Suarez explained that he first did not recognize Escalera when he ran into her in 2008 at Club 57 on Ludlow Street, because the last time he had seen her was before she changed her gender identity. But after she approached him and he realized who she was, Suarez was impressed.

“I thought, ‘You did such a great change,’” said Suarez, who soon began attending Escalera’s shows with his friend Lorenzo Warren, 29.

“If you meet her you’d think she was never up against discrimination, that life was perfect,” said Warren, who became close with Escalera after meeting her a year ago.

“She had positive energy always. … She changed my life completely.”

As Warren stood among the crowd Monday night, he said words could not describe the pain he felt at Escalera’s loss.

“She was a superstar and so humble,” he said. “The way she moved portrayed her. She moved perfect. She was perfect.”

This weekend, the House of Xtravaganza plans to release 25 white balloons in honor of Escalera at the AIDS Walk, the “grandmother” of the group Coko Xtravaganza said. They will also wear buttons with Escalera’s image.

“We’re celebrating our 30th anniversary as a house so it’s especially rough for us,” said Coko, 52. “She was one of the stars in the family. She was my transgender daughter.”

For the original report go to http://www.dnainfo.com/new-york/20120515/bushwick/transgender-performer-lorena-escalera-mourned-after-fatal-bushwick-fire#ixzz1v0WkpNpL

Author Carlos Fuentes, who played a dominant role in Latin America’s novel-writing boom by delving into the failed ideals of the Mexican revolution, died Tuesday in a Mexico City hospital, the Associated Press reports. He was 83.

Mexico’s National Council for Culture for the Arts confirmed the death of Mexico’s most celebrated novelist. The cause was not immediately known, said the culture official, who was not authorized to speak to the media.

Mexican media reported Mr. Fuentes died at the Angeles del Pedregal hospital, where he was being treated for heart problems.

The loss was immediately mourned worldwide. A message on President Felipe Calderon’s Twitter account said “I deeply lament the death of our beloved and admired Carlos Fuentes, a universal Mexican writer.”

Many American readers know Mr. Fuentes for “The Old Gringo,” a novel about San Francisco journalist Ambrose Bierce, who disappeared at the height of the 1910-20 Mexican Revolution. That book was later made into a film starring Gregory Peck and Jane Fonda.

The prolific Mr. Fuentes wrote his first novel, “Where the Air Is Clear,” at age 29, laying the foundation for a boom in Spanish-language contemporary literature during the 1960s and 1970s. He published an essay on the change of power in France in the newspaper Reforma on Tuesday, the same day he died.

His generation of writers, including Colombia’s Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Peru’s Mario Vargas Llosa, drew global readership and attention to Latin American culture during a period when strongmen ruled much of the region.

“The Death of Artemio Cruz,” a novel about a post-revolutionary Mexico that failed to keep its promise of narrowing social gaps, brought Mr. Fuentes international notoriety.

Mr. Fuentes was often mentioned as a candidate for the Nobel Prize but never won one. Throughout his life, Mr. Fuentes also taught courses at Harvard, Princeton, Columbia and Brown universities in the United States.

Mr. Fuentes was born in Panama City on Dec. 11, 1928, to Mexican parents. He lived most of his life abroad, growing up in Montevideo, Uruguay; Rio de Janeiro; Washington, D.C.; Santiago, Chile; and Buenos Aires.

He later divided his time between homes in Mexico City and London, where he did most of his writing. Mr. Fuentes was married from 1959 to 1973 to actress Rita Macedo, with whom he had his only surviving daughter.

After the couple divorced, Mr. Fuentes married journalist Silvia Lemus and they had two children together.

For the original report go to http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2012/05/15/BARS1OIBN7.DTL#ixzz1v0UoJNPl

American tourists to the Caribbean are amazed by the Greek influence—Catherine Tsounis writes in this article for the ggazette.com site. A subjugated people, without a country, the Greek culture made its mark in the new world. Greek mariners, with Hispanic names navigated the waters. But, the Greek language also made its mark on the Caribbean.

“The word faros in Spanish comes from the Greek language,” said the park ranger at the Castillo San Felipe del Morro (El Morro) in Puerto Rico. “It means light house. What did the Greeks not invent? The first lighthouse was the Colossus of Rhodes, one of the seven marvels of the ancient world, before the famed lighthouse of Alexandria, Egypt.” This revelation was part of a free tour of El Morro, the 16th century citadel, conducted in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Every Saturday and Sunday afternoons, a free trip of the lighthouse is offered in El Morro castle to the public.

El Moro was built on the northwestern point of San Juan, Puerto Rico, in honor of king Philip II of Spain in 1539. The lighthouse was built on top of the Castillo in 1843. In 1908, the U.S. military replaced it with the current lighthouse. The original lighthouse was destroyed by US warship fire during the 1898 bombardment of the city. In 1983, El Moro was declared a World Heritage site. El Morro was a Spanish defensive military fortification that protected Puerto Rico, “the Key to the Antilles”.

The Paleologos family of Byzantium left its imprint in Barbados. According to the Cemetery and Memorial Parks website of Barbados, “One intriguing feature of the St John’s Parish Church Cemetery is probably found outside in the graveyard where the tomb of Ferdinando Paleologus (son of Theodore) rests. Paleologus was a descendent of the brother of the great Emperor Constantine XI, the last of the Byzantine Imperial family from the 1400’s that produced the last Christian emperors of Greece. He fled to Barbados after the 1645 Battle of Naseby in England….. He was a church warden of St. John’s Parish having lived there for 20 years where he owned a 197-acre plantation. He managed it from 1649 to 1670 and later died there in 1678.When Paleologus died, he was naturally buried in the St John’s Parish Church, since he had been a prominent person in that community. He left behind a legacy of mystery which until 1844 was buried at St John’s. It was said that he was buried ‘backways’. The rumors persisted until nearly 200 years later in 1844 when a curious church official ordered the vault opened.”

“Paleologus lead coffin was found to have been in a different position to all the others. As the lid was opened, his skeleton was found lodged in quicklime. He had been buried according to Greek Orthodox traditions, which amongst other things, demanded that the dead person’s head should point to the west and their feet to the east. The dignified memorial, wrought in Portland stone portrays a Greek temple with Doric columns surrounding the cross of Constantine carved in the center. The following inscription may still be read:

Here lyeth ye body of
Ferdinando Paleologus
Descended from ye imperial lyne
Of ye last Christian
Emperors of Greece
Churchwarden of this Parish
1655-1656
Vestryman, Twentye years
Died Oct. 3 1678

The estate of Ferdinando still survives today (2005) as a working farm now called the “Ashford Plantation”. Inevitably becoming a tourist attraction, since in the 1980s, when the Ashford Bird Park and animal sanctuary were opened there.” Greek language and culture is a treasure belonging to the international community.

For the original report go to http://www.qgazette.com/news/2012-05-16/Front_Page/The_Greek_Influence_in_the_Caribbean_Faros_in_El_M.html

The 11th Havana Biennial got underway last Friday. Since 1985, Cuba’s biennial has attracted contemporary artists from all over the world, with an emphasis on Latin American and Caribbean works–Mark Byrnes reports.

This year’s focuses on “the way people imagine their social space and express themselves through cultural and historical references.”

The event runs through June 11.

Top image: A man looks at a creation by Cuban artist Fabelo Hung while walking his dog along Havana’s seafront boulevard ‘El Malecon’ during the 11th Biennial contemporary art exhibition May 14, 2012. The creation, a panoramic picture of the ‘Malecon’ with inserted images of icebergs floating near, is titled ‘Fresh Air’.

For the original report go to http://www.theatlanticcities.com/arts-and-lifestyle/2012/05/havanas-international-art-draw/2010/