“Miami has been a work workshop for countless writers and artists”

MIAMI, United States. – Daniel I. Pedreira has just been elected president of the PEN Club of Cuban Writers in Exile, of which he had been secretary since 2021, under the presidency of the critic Luis de la Paz. Previously, under the presidency of José Antonio Albertini, he had headed the Committee of Writers in Prison, key in a panorama like the one the Island is experiencing.

Pedreira not only becomes the youngest president in the organization’s history, but also the first born in exile. In the city of Miami, where he resides, he is a regular collaborator of the Institute of Cuban Historical Memory against Totalitarianism, and vice president of the Cuban Institute for Freedom of Expression and Press, which monitors human rights violations against communicators and citizens in the Island.

The son of exiled parents, Pedreira alternates his activism with his work as a professor in the Department of Politics and International Relations at Florida International University, where he completed a doctorate in Political Science and one of his two master’s degrees.

In addition, he has dedicated himself to the research and study of Cuban politics during the Republican era. From this interest, titles such as The last constituentabout the political development of Emilio “Millo” Ochoa (Aduana Vieja, 2013), the biography An Instrument of Peace: the full-circled life of Ambassador Guillermo Belt Ramírez (Lexington Books, 2019), y PEN Club of Cuban Writers in Exile: Foundation, struggle and present (2019).

―The Miami-based PEN Club dates back to the end of the last century. How did it come about?

―The PEN Club of Cuban Writers in Exile is heir to the PEN Club of Cuba born in Havana in 1945.

The one I now chair was founded in 1997 thanks to the vision of a group of exiled Cuban writers, among whom were Octavio Costa (last president of the PEN Club of Cuba), Ángel Cuadra, Armando de Armas, Indamiro Restano and Reinaldo Bragado Brittany.

This PEN center was officially incorporated into the PEN International network at its 64th Congress held that year in Edinburgh, Scotland. Its first president was Ángel Cuadra. Then came Armando Álvarez Bravo, Eduardo Lolo, José Antonio Albertini and Luis de la Paz.

―In your particular case, since when did you join the PEN? What made you join his ranks?

Furthermore, I always admired the work of the PEN Club of Cuban Writers in Exile, in particular the career of its president at that time, Ángel Cuadra.

―How many members does the organization have and what regular spaces does it promote in the city of Miami?

―Our PEN has almost 60 members. We typically hold our events at public libraries, such as the Westchester Regional Library and the Coral Gables Library. Historically we also held events at the Koubek Center and the Bacardi House, both formerly owned by the University of Miami.

―As newly elected president, what are your main projections for the PEN internally?

―As president, I seek to increase the membership of the organization and make it more widely known inside and outside of Miami.

I am also very interested in promoting writing and reading for the younger generations. At the same time, I will work to maintain the vision of the founders of our PEN.

―Is PEN International an entity from which they have been able to influence to make the truth visible under socialism in Cuba?

-We have achieved it. For decades, PEN International has stood in solidarity with Cuban writers imprisoned and persecuted in Cuba and around the world.

At different times, different PEN centers adopted Cuban writers in prison. This has been the case for Ernesto Díaz Rodríguez, Ángel Cuadra and Armando Valladares and, more recently, the narrator Ángel Santiesteban Prats, the prisoner of July 11, 2021 María Cristina Garrido and the independent Catholic journalist Roberto de Jesús Quiñones Haces.