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The Union of Writers and Artists of Cuba (UNEAC) celebrated the birthday of the poet Delfín Prats on December 14, defining him as an "essential figure of our literature."
In a message shared on social media, the official institution praised “the finesse and sensuality” of his work and his “authentic voice,” highlighting the legacy of the poet from Holguín who received the National Literature Award in 2022, the highest honor in Cuban letters.
However, behind this congratulation lies a bitter story. Delfín Prats Pupo, born in 1945 in La Cuaba, Holguín, was for decades a poet silenced by the very cultural apparatus that now celebrates him.
In 1968, he received the David Prize from UNEAC for his book 'Language of the Mutes', but shortly afterwards, authorities ordered the withdrawal and destruction of the entire edition. His poetry, deemed "dark" and "subjective," strayed from the ideals of the "new man" and, furthermore, hinted at an unacceptable homoerotic sensitivity for the cultural commissars of the time.
The case of Prats was not an isolated one. In those years, the cultural policy promoted by the regime of Fidel Castro became more stringent under the slogan "within the Revolution, everything; against the Revolution, nothing."
The 1970s —known as the "gray five years"— was marked by censorship, surveillance, and the marginalization of homosexual artists or those considered ideologically "weak." Many were sent to the Military Units for Production Assistance (UMAP), work camps intended to "reeducate" religious individuals, intellectuals, and homosexuals.
Prats, although he was not interned in the UMAP, was removed from the literary circuit, forced to survive in Holguín by taking on menial jobs and living in precarious conditions.
Meanwhile, his friend and contemporary Reinaldo Arenas endured imprisonment, persecution, and ultimately exile. Both shared not only a passion for literature but also the condemnation for their dissent and sexual identity.
This marginalization was captured decades later in the documentary 'Extravagant Beings' (2004), by filmmaker Manuel Zayas, which reconstructs the life of Arenas.
In a memorable scene, Zayas interviews Prats in his humble home in Holguín. While the poet spoke about 'Before Night Falls,' Arenas' autobiographical book, and his memories of the La Cabaña prison, the sector chief of the Police burst into the house, demanding identification from the film crew.
The camera recorded everything. That moment, as spontaneous as it was revealing, demonstrated the persistence of state control over Prats and all creators, even in the twenty-first century.
That today UNEAC celebrates Delfín Prats as an "essential figure" is, to say the least, paradoxical.
For years, the same organization excluded him from its publications and erased him from official cultural memory. Only after the cultural thaw of the late eighties was Prats "rehabilitated," receiving the Literary Criticism Award in 1987 for 'To Celebrate the Ascent of Icarus.' However, his voice—intimate, melancholic, rebellious—had already become a symbol of silent resistance.
At 80 years old, Prats embodies the history of many Cuban writers: talent and dignity confronted by censorship and oblivion. His life demonstrates that poetry can survive fear, silence, and the enforcers of a dictatorship. That the poet, even in poverty, remains free.
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