Writing Islands

How

contemporary Cuban writers build transnational communities



In Writing Islands, Elena

Lahr-Vivaz employs methods from archipelagic studies to analyze works of

contemporary Cuban writers on the island alongside those in exile. Offering a

new lens to explore the multiplicity of Cuban space and identity, she argues

that these writers approach their nation as part of a larger, transnational

network of islands. Introducing the term "arcubi?lago" to describe the spaces

created by Cuban writers, both on the ground and in print, Lahr-Vivaz

illuminates how transnational communities are forged and how they function

across space and time.



Lahr-Vivaz

considers how poets, novelists, and essayists of the 1990s and 2000s built

interconnected communities of readers through blogs, state-sponsored book

fairs, informal methods of book circulation, and intertextual dialogues. Book

chapters offer in-depth analyses of the works of writers as different as Reina

Mar?a Rodr?guez, known for lyrical poetry, and Zo? Vald?s, known for strident

critiques of Fidel Castro. Incorporating insights from on-site interviews in

Cuba, Spain, and the United States, Lahr-Vivaz analyzes how writers maintained

connections materially, through the distribution of works, and metaphorically,

as their texts bridge spaces separated by geopolitics.



Through

a decolonizing methodology that resists limiting Cuba to a distinct geographic

space, Writing Islands investigates

the nuances of Cuban identity, the creation of alternate spaces of identity,

the potential of the Internet for artistic expression, and the transnational

bonds that join far-flung communities.





Publication

of this work made possible by a Sustaining the Humanities through the American

Rescue Plan grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.