Quick Facts
Biography
Daína Chaviano (Spanish: [daˈina tʃaˈβjano]) (born 1957) is a Cuban writer.
She is considered one of the three most important female fantasy and science fiction writers in the Spanish language, along with Angélica Gorodischer (Argentina) and Elia Barceló (Spain), forming the so-called “feminine trinity of science fiction in Ibero-America.”
In Cuba, she published several science fiction and fantasy books, becoming the most renowned and best-selling author in those genres in Cuban literature. Since leaving the island, she has distinguished herself with a series of novels incorporating historical and more contemporary matters as well as mythological and fantastic elements.
Biography
When she had barely begun her university studies, she won the first science fiction competition ever organized in Cuba with her short story collection Los mundos que amo (The Worlds I Love). After earning a bachelor's degree in English Language and Literature at the University of Havana, she established the first science fiction literary workshop in her country, which she named “Oscar Hurtado” in honor of the father of that genre on the Caribbean island.
In 1991 she left Cuba, establishing residency in the United States, where she worked as a translator, columnist, and editor.
In 1998 she achieved international recognition when she was awarded the Azorín Prize for Best Novel in Spain for El hombre, la hembra y el hambre. This work forms part of her series «The Occult Side of Havana», together with Casa de juegos, Gata encerrada, and La isla de los amores infinitos (The Island of Eternal Love, Riverhead Books, 2008). The series has been described as “the most coherent novelistic project of its generation, indispensable for understanding the social psychology and spiritual vicissitudes of the Cuban people.”
In 2004 she was guest of honor at the 25th International Conference for the Fantastic in the Arts (ICFA) in the United States. It was the first time that honor had ever been conferred on a Spanish-language writer.
The Island of Eternal Love has been published in 25 languages, making it the most widely translated Cuban novel of all time.
She is the cousin of the Cuban Mexican actor César Évora.
Literary influences
Her literary influences derive fundamentally from the Celtic world, from diverse mythologies, and from the principal epics of ancient peoples. Among these sources one can find the Arthurian cycle; Greek, Roman, Egyptian, pre-Columbian and Afro-Cuban myths; and humankind’s first epics, dating back to prehistory, such as the Epic of Gilgamesh, the Mahabharata, the Popol Vuh, the Odyssey, and other similar works.
The author has observed that she has no affinity whatsoever with Cuban literature of any period. Chaviano has stated that, with the exception of authors such as Manuel Mujica Laínez and Mario Vargas Llosa, her only point of contact with Latin America is pre-Columbian mythology.
The author has said that her passion for Anglo-Saxon literature was always so strong that, when she entered the university, she decided to major in English literature so that she could read many of these authors in their original language.
In general terms, her contemporary influences come from European and Anglophone authors like Margaret Atwood, Milan Kundera, Ursula K. Le Guin, Ray Bradbury, Anaïs Nin, J. R. R. Tolkien, and William Shakespeare, among others.
Style
Daína Chaviano’s works have been described as “bold experiments that break down the boundaries between genres.” Her style is characterized by:
- highly poetic prose, indebted to cinematic imagery, which leaves the reader with the impression that s/he has seen, rather than read, a story;
- a fondness for the magical or fantastic anecdote, which nonetheless lends a high degree of realism to the narrative, thanks to a well-grounded knowledge of the religious and mythological elements of Celtic, Christian, Afro-Cuban, pre-Columbian, and Greco-Roman cultures;
- several interpretive levels and a plethora of hidden meanings in her books, whether they be fantasy, science fiction, or realism.
Works in English
Works in Spanish
Outside Cuba:
In Cuba: