“There always has to be a fight inside you, then outside. Literature is no less than that,” the writer Carlos Esquivel told 26, speaking of becoming the winner of the 2021 Gilberto E. Rodríguez Creation Scholarship, which is convened each year by the Provincial Committee of National Union of Cuban Writers and Artists (UNEAC).

The jury, made up of María Liliana Celorrio, Desiderio Borroto and Ronel González, awarded the value of the storybook project “Anthology of dirty fights.” The reasons stem from the same conception of the work, which “goes beyond witnessing an order of roughness.” The treatment of words; the formation of a dialoguing meta-writing, with stories, characters, and obsessions; the reformulation of codes and themes; besides bordering on literary history since its permanent fictionalization, were recognized features in the opinion.

In dialogue with this media, the author expressed: “They are stories that share the same quota of unreality and other neighboring landscapes: the most corrosive allegory, the inter-textual game, the crossing of masks, the oppressive contexts, and the irony. A tribute and detraction to imposing cultural symbols (good and bad).

“I don't explain what others explain better. Perhaps it should occur in the strange and opposite portion. The reasoning is lonely. The individual explanation has selfish motives, although no less just. A storybook refers to writing as a dangerous replica. A book of stories in which I join Bukowski and Lezama, a melancholic murderer with a repulsive victim, Michael Jackson with some sumptuous native writers…”

Esquivel is a prolific writer who has triumphed in countless events; he has won this contest on several occasions and in different genres. The previous ascent to the throne occurred in 2018, with the storybook “Why cats don't hunt dragons.”

The Gilberto E. Rodríguez Creation Scholarship pays tribute to one of our greatest inspirers, considered the most important poet of the 20th century in the province. Carlos honors him from his daily delivery; it is his way of facing disappointments, demons, everyday noises, and instead, giving us those pieces of light in the form of texts.