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The Cuban writer Zoé Valdés sparked controversy again during her participation in the Derecha Fest in Mar del Plata, Argentina, by labeling her compatriot Leonardo Padura as "a police officer of the regime" and harshly criticizing his literary work.
Valdés, based in France, did not hold back her criticisms against her compatriot, whom she labeled a "petty writer" whose work, in her opinion, "glosses over the horrors of the Island."
"Her literature does not reveal what exists on the island. Her literature masks the horrors of the Island. Her literature softens, sweetens the terrors that the Cuban people are experiencing," she said.
In an interview with Infobae, she stated that Padura has served the regime to distort the history of writers such as herself, Reinaldo Arenas, and Guillermo Cabrera Infante, and to silence their work.
According to Valdés, Padura's mission abroad was to "silence the voice of truth from Cuban exiles," while he promoted the revolution from outside and received international recognition such as the Princess of Asturias Award and the Hammett Prize.
"He is a writer who met with Lula da Silva in his prison cell while he was incarcerated and delivered direct messages from Raúl Castro," he revealed.
The intellectual insisted that Padura is a policeman of the regime, "the alter ego and not the other way around of his own character, the policeman in his novels."
Finally, setting aside his literary aspect, he stated that the creator of Mario Conde seems to him one of the most harmful individuals and has caused the most damage to those intellectuals who have truly suffered within Cuba.
"What is interesting is that I am always asked about Leonardo Padura, but no one asks him about me," he questioned.
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