On Writing and Mystery: A Conversation with María Elena Llana
by Aracelis González Asendorf
“When a ghost or spirit enters my writing, I say, okay, ‘show me what you want.’ But, I don’t relinquish control. I take notice. If it belongs in what I’m writing, I let it stay. If it doesn’t, I write down what that ghost or spirit brings and save it for the right piece. The writer has to find the atmosphere of the story. You create its world. And when you’re fully in it, it’s like entering another dimension.”
María Elena Llana, one of Cuba’s preeminent short story writers, visited Tampa recently as part of a multi-city speaking and reading tour across the United States promoting her latest publication, An Address in Havana: Domicilio Habanero. The short story collection is a bilingual compilation of thirteen stories, incorporating Llana’s stories in their original Spanish with English versions translated by Dr. Barbara D. Riess. Published by Cubanabooks Press, the collection highlights Llana’s best-known stories spanning a writing career of more than fifty years.
Her first short story collection, La Reja, was published in 1965. Llana, or Mell, the acronym of her initials by which, she tells me, she prefers to be called, has published multiple short story collections including the critically acclaimed Casas del Vedado, which won the Premio de la Crítica prize in 1983. But her “first hat,” she says, is that of a journalist. Born in 1936, Mell began her journalism career in 1959, writing not only for the print media, but also for radio and television, eventually becoming a foreign correspondent working primarily for Prensa Latina, a job that would take her to various parts of Latin America, Europe, Africa and Asia. She covered stories from Vietnam, Afghanistan, and China.
One of her earliest jobs, however, was writing radio programming. “I could do a lot of the actual writing from home,” she says. She was a divorced mother raising two young sons. Radio writing enabled her to support herself and her children. She had promised herself as a young woman that she would never be economically dependent on anyone. Mell says she was stubborn and determined to be self-sufficient. She spent six years in the late 1950’s and early 1960’s writing from her house, which she admits, was lonely work. It was during this solitary time that the short stories came.
The genesis of the story, “The Gobelin Tapestry,” originated from that period. After many hours alone one day, she thought she heard a bell tinkling. At first, she thought it was a clock. Following the sound, she then believed it came from a decorative vase. She covered the vase, and heard the bell from the ceiling. She concluded that her mind, from the long periods of solitude, was playing tricks on her. In “The Gobelin Tapestry,” a troubled young girl becomes obsessed with the people portrayed in the tapestry, believing that they are beckoning her. She discovers she can enter the tapestry at will and explore their world.
Many of Mell’s fantastical stories traverse space and time. In “A Five-Hundred-Year-Old Rum,” Chabela, a woman whose boyfriend is leaving Cuba for Miami on a raft, finds herself sharing a bottle of rum on Havana’s malecón with Isabel de Bobadilla, wife of Hernando de Soto, on the eve of her husband’s departure to explore Florida. Within the fantastical (the term she prefers to describe her work instead of magical realism) Mell infuses subtle and keen commentary. Isabela tells her husband, “Cuba is indeed a fraud, Hernando. Without gold and without hope.”
Mell’s stories span a wide spectrum, from the fantastical to stark and provocative realism. In the story, “Volver,” a woman returns to Cuba after two years of working abroad to find her country deteriorated: “Screwed and in ruins, but it’s yours, and you’re feeling it, taking it in, dissolving into a steamy liquid mix of memories.” Mell says the story is autobiographical. She spent several years teaching journalism in Mexico, but she returned to Cuba. “I prefer to be a first-class citizen in my own country than a second-class citizen in somebody else’s.”
Over the course of our conversation, Mell spoke candidly about her travels and her work. She recounted friendships and encounters with some of Cuba’s most distinguished writers—poet Heberto Padilla, who was imprisoned for a time for his political views, and writer/journalist Norberto Fuentes. She spoke of her argument with the acclaimed writer Guillermo Cabrera Infante, which she admits was her fault and resulted in her dismissal from a newspaper job. Mell spoke of her two marriages and her romance with the famed writer, Antonio Benítez Rojo. I ask if she’s considered writing a memoir. “Yes, I’ve considered it, and people in Cuba have asked me. Perhaps I might consider writing a book of essays.”
For her, she says, “The writing if the most important thing, whether it is published or not. Because the act of creating has its own mystery."
María Elena Llana, one of Cuba’s preeminent short story writers, visited Tampa recently as part of a multi-city speaking and reading tour across the United States promoting her latest publication, An Address in Havana: Domicilio Habanero. The short story collection is a bilingual compilation of thirteen stories, incorporating Llana’s stories in their original Spanish with English versions translated by Dr. Barbara D. Riess. Published by Cubanabooks Press, the collection highlights Llana’s best-known stories spanning a writing career of more than fifty years.
Her first short story collection, La Reja, was published in 1965. Llana, or Mell, the acronym of her initials by which, she tells me, she prefers to be called, has published multiple short story collections including the critically acclaimed Casas del Vedado, which won the Premio de la Crítica prize in 1983. But her “first hat,” she says, is that of a journalist. Born in 1936, Mell began her journalism career in 1959, writing not only for the print media, but also for radio and television, eventually becoming a foreign correspondent working primarily for Prensa Latina, a job that would take her to various parts of Latin America, Europe, Africa and Asia. She covered stories from Vietnam, Afghanistan, and China.
One of her earliest jobs, however, was writing radio programming. “I could do a lot of the actual writing from home,” she says. She was a divorced mother raising two young sons. Radio writing enabled her to support herself and her children. She had promised herself as a young woman that she would never be economically dependent on anyone. Mell says she was stubborn and determined to be self-sufficient. She spent six years in the late 1950’s and early 1960’s writing from her house, which she admits, was lonely work. It was during this solitary time that the short stories came.
The genesis of the story, “The Gobelin Tapestry,” originated from that period. After many hours alone one day, she thought she heard a bell tinkling. At first, she thought it was a clock. Following the sound, she then believed it came from a decorative vase. She covered the vase, and heard the bell from the ceiling. She concluded that her mind, from the long periods of solitude, was playing tricks on her. In “The Gobelin Tapestry,” a troubled young girl becomes obsessed with the people portrayed in the tapestry, believing that they are beckoning her. She discovers she can enter the tapestry at will and explore their world.
Many of Mell’s fantastical stories traverse space and time. In “A Five-Hundred-Year-Old Rum,” Chabela, a woman whose boyfriend is leaving Cuba for Miami on a raft, finds herself sharing a bottle of rum on Havana’s malecón with Isabel de Bobadilla, wife of Hernando de Soto, on the eve of her husband’s departure to explore Florida. Within the fantastical (the term she prefers to describe her work instead of magical realism) Mell infuses subtle and keen commentary. Isabela tells her husband, “Cuba is indeed a fraud, Hernando. Without gold and without hope.”
Mell’s stories span a wide spectrum, from the fantastical to stark and provocative realism. In the story, “Volver,” a woman returns to Cuba after two years of working abroad to find her country deteriorated: “Screwed and in ruins, but it’s yours, and you’re feeling it, taking it in, dissolving into a steamy liquid mix of memories.” Mell says the story is autobiographical. She spent several years teaching journalism in Mexico, but she returned to Cuba. “I prefer to be a first-class citizen in my own country than a second-class citizen in somebody else’s.”
Over the course of our conversation, Mell spoke candidly about her travels and her work. She recounted friendships and encounters with some of Cuba’s most distinguished writers—poet Heberto Padilla, who was imprisoned for a time for his political views, and writer/journalist Norberto Fuentes. She spoke of her argument with the acclaimed writer Guillermo Cabrera Infante, which she admits was her fault and resulted in her dismissal from a newspaper job. Mell spoke of her two marriages and her romance with the famed writer, Antonio Benítez Rojo. I ask if she’s considered writing a memoir. “Yes, I’ve considered it, and people in Cuba have asked me. Perhaps I might consider writing a book of essays.”
For her, she says, “The writing if the most important thing, whether it is published or not. Because the act of creating has its own mystery."
