Cascos negros de luz intensa

Arístides Vega Chapú

Santa Clara, Cuba, 1962

Arístides Vega Chapu; Writer and cultural promoter. Coordinator and editor of the cultural magazine Guano de la Dirección Provincial de Cultura Villa Clara.

Member of Uneac. He holds the Distinction for Cuban Culture, the Sarapico Distinction, given by the Assembly of the PP in his city and the Medal for Cultural Contribution to his city. In 2014, the Provincial Directorate of Culture, at the request of the CPL, awarded him the Ser Fiel Prize. He holds the 20th and 25th anniversary medals of the AHS, the Raúl Gómez García medal, the Medal for Cultural Collaboration awarded by the Municipal Assembly of People's Power in Santa Clara and the Cultural Recognition of Unesco. He is an Illustrious Son of the city of Santa Clara.

He has been awarded the Abel Santamaría Literary Prizes of the Central University of Las Villas in 1987, the National Poetry Contest 13 de Marzo of the University of Havana in 1988, the Santa Clara City Foundation Prize in Poetry and Children's Literature in 2001, the Nicolás Guillén International Prize in 2001, the Navarro Luna National Poetry Prize in 2002, the Pablo de la Torriente Brau Centre Memory Prize in 2011 and the Prize of the International Poetry Contest ‘El Mundo lleva alas’ (The world has wings) in 2013. Finalist of the VI International Contest Gastón Baquero, Spain, 2012, Carmen Luisa Pinto Prize ‘Pluma de Oro’, awarded by the Editorial Voces de Hoy, Miami, Florida, 2014 and Premio Fundación de la Ciudad de Santa Clara in short story, 2015.

Her journalistic works have been published in various Cuban and foreign magazines, such as La Gaceta de Cuba, Umbral, Cauce, Signos, Revista Conexos, Trasatlántica, Poetry and Scholarship, Linden Lane Magazine, Cuba contemporánea, among others.

He has participated in literary events, book fairs, book presentations and conferences in Costa Rica, Panama, Nicaragua, Argentina, Venezuela, the United States of America, Mexico, Honduras and Chile.

His poems have appeared in different anthologies and magazines in Cuba and abroad.

He has given lectures on Cuban literature in Cuban and foreign universities, such as the Central University of Las Villas, the University of Havana, the State University of Panama, the National University of New Mexico, the University of Costa Rica, the Juárez Autonomous University of Tabasco and the Catholic University of Antofagasta, Chile.

He has published more than thirty titles in the genres of poetry, short stories, novels, children's literature, testimony and chronicles. His latest published books are Tour Cuba, Cuentos, Entre Líneas Publications, USA, 2021, Evocación de la vida, Crónicas, Crisálida Ediciones, Canada, 2022, Edificio Cuba, Poesía, Crisálida Ediciones, Canada 2022, La búsqueda de la verdad, crónicas, Editorial Hermanos Loynaz and La vida en un túnel, poesía, Editorial La Chifurnia, Honduras.