Victor Hugo Letters to Cubans Exhibit in Havana 


03/09/2010

French writer Victor Hugo's two letters to Cuban people'' facsimiles, written during the Independence Struggle at the end of 19th century, are being exhibited in Víctor Hugo House-Museum in Havana's historic center.

In the letters, donated by Cuba-France Association, which are included in the writer's collected works, let us see his handwriting's rhythm, his thin strokes and spaced lines and the inevitable corrections "made as he scribbled".

The first letter, dated in January 15, 1870, is Hugo's answer to an Emilia Casanova de Villaverde's request written from New York.

Under the title "To Cuban Women", the author of "The Miserable Ones" defend the island strongly.

In the letter, Victor Hugo supported Cuban women's anguishes and sufferings, and asserted that Cuban and other Latin American countries would be free and sovereign some day.

According to Víctor Hugo House-Museum's director Ana Maria Reyes, although the second latter has not a specific date, it is linked with the first one.

Nevertheless, Reyes researches show that the author wrote it in responses to a request of Antonio Zambrana, one of the Port-au-Prince's combatants, in Cuba, as the writer visited him in his Parisian house in 1874.

Alejo Carpentier also made clear references to the novelist's ties with Cuban independence struggles. "Victor Hugo wrote noble proclamations in favor of Cuban indepence and welcome Cuban emigrants, who visited his Parisian house to tell him their struggle adventures", pointed out Carpentier.

The Víctor Hugo House-Museum celebrates, with these facsimiles' exhibition, two important anniversaries: the 208 of Victor Hugo's birth and the institution's 5th anniversary.
 
PL Translation Staff