José Triana (poet)

José Triana (4 January 1931 – 4 March 2018) was a Cuban poet and playwright.

Life and career

Born in Hatuey, Camagüey Province on 4 January 1931,[1][2] Triana attended the University of Oriente.[3] He moved to Spain in 1954,[4] where he began his career as a playwright.[3] While in Spain, Triana studied at the University of Madrid and theatre with José Franco.[1] Triana later joined the troupe Grupo Didi, and worked as a scenic artist for Teatro Ensayo.[1] Most his early plays were inspired by Greek tragedy.[5][6] Triana wrote his first play, The Major General Will Speak of Theogony, in 1957, and began work on his best known play Night of the Assassins later that year.[7] After Fidel Castro took power in 1959, Triana returned to Cuba.[3] In 1960, Triana's Medea in the Mirror was produced at the Prometeo Theatre.[7] The following year, Triana joined the National Union of Writers and Artists of Cuba as a founding member.[8]

In 1965, he was awarded the Casa de las Américas Prize for Night of the Assassins,[1][7] which he had rewritten earlier that year.[7] The rewritten play won El Gallo of Havana Prize in 1966.[1][7] International attention resulting from the awards caused supporters of the Cuban Revolution to turn against Triana and his work.[4][8] He married Chantal Chilhaud-Dumaine (daughter of Jacques Chilhaud-Dumaine [fr], Ambassador of France to Portugal) in 1968.[1] Triana and his wife were exiled to France in 1980.[3][8] In France, Triana adapted Respectable Women, a novel by Miguel de Carrión [es], into the play Dialogue for Women, eventually retitled Common Words, an homage to the play Divine Words, written by Ramón del Valle-Inclán.[7] He died on 4 March 2018, in Paris, aged 87.[2][3]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f Smith, Verity (1997). Encyclopedia of Latin American Literature. Routledge. p. 1484. ISBN 9781135314255.
  2. ^ a b Àlvarez, Johanna A. (4 March 2018). "Muere en París el poeta y dramaturgo cubano José Triana". El Nuevo Herald (in Spanish). Retrieved 8 March 2018.
  3. ^ a b c d e "Fallece en Francia destacado intelectual cubano" (in Spanish). cubanet.org. 5 March 2018. Retrieved 8 March 2018.
  4. ^ a b "José Triana". outofthewings.org. Archived from the original on March 8, 2018. Retrieved 8 March 2018.
  5. ^ Lima, Robert (October 2004). "Jose Triana and the Tragic Mode: Three plays". Neophilologus. 88 (4): 559–568. doi:10.1007/s11061-004-5655-y.
  6. ^ Dauster, Frank (1969). "The game of chance: The theatre of José Triana". Latin American Theatre Review. 3 (1): 3–8.
  7. ^ a b c d e f Salvat, Ricard (2007). "José Triana: An Interview". TDR. 51 (2). Translated by Pottlitzer, Joanne: 94–118. doi:10.1162/dram.2007.51.2.94.
  8. ^ a b c Taylor, Diana. "Theatre and revolution: José Triana". Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes. Retrieved 8 March 2018.