All days of the Storyteller.
Autor de libros como Taita, diga usted cómo, El caballo de coral, Gente de pueblo, entre otros, a Onelio Jorge Cardoso se le considera el Cuentista Nacional Cubano.
Lucas does not want to donate old irons to scatter young men on the earth, while at home the plow grows old waiting for the innocent children. Lucas does not utter even once the word peace and I see it penitent in his stripped guajiro face. Lucas, Onelio Jorge Cardoso, both of them or the same in the character’s own inner dialogue, convince me of that innate magic to tell stories beyond academia or university degrees.
The young writer knew how to take advantage of all his discoveries while working as a traveling salesman. What he learned from the charcoal burners, the fishermen, the people of the village or the city, he knew how to tell with a mastery that throbbed in his body. «A man knows his trade if you look at him carefully», he said; and I think I know the Cuentero Mayor so well when I read each of his texts!
In recent days many media paid tribute to him. But the man who was born and departed to eternity in the month of the downpours, still transcends dates and ages. His mastery to surprise and draw scenes force us to reread him and remember a Juan Candela so real, so ours.
What a grace of Onelio Jorge to describe the most common scenes! «Her eye looks into the eye of the needle» and the reader feels the vertigo of the old woman when the hole escapes from the sharp point of the thread. First prize in the Alfonso Hernández Catá Contest, National Peace Prize, Cultural Counselor of the Cuban Embassy in Peru and president of the Literature section of the UNEAC, he achieved all that. However, could he have received a greater award than the deep admiration of his readers?
The excellent writer palpitates 37 years after his departure; he does it in his books for children, in Negrita’s gaze, or in the wings of the crab that wanted to build his house on the branch of a caguairan, with a balcony that sways in the wind near the clouds. His literature continues to surprise while enchanting children and adults alike. There is no doubt, his name is alive at any time of the year, it is enough that there is someone passionate about stories.
Written by Jeidis Suárez.
