Norge Espinosa Mendoza: Cuban poet, playwright, theatre worker, and critic

The Department of Spanish and Portuguese
University of Kansas

Norge Espinosa Mendoza
Cuban poet, playwright, theatre worker, and critic

“Las otras caras de una cuba sexuada:
Disensos y deseos de una isla en revolución”

Monday, April 5, 2010, 4 p.m.
1003 Wescoe Hall

A prominent young Cuban poet and playwright, Norge Espinosa was among the first to experiment with homosexual themes in the late 1980s, with his widely anthologized poem “Vestido de novia,” written when he was a teenager. His poetry includes Las breves tribulaciones (1992, National Poetry Prize from the Cuban magazines El Caimán Barbudo) and Las estrategias del páramo (2000) and his plays include Romanza del lirio, La virgencita de bronce (a retelling of the Cecilia Valdés story), Ícaros, and Cintas de seda. He has also developed cultural presentations and is a prolific lecturer and a theatre critic. He has worked closely in multiple roles with Teatro El Público, one of the most acclaimed theatre groups of the 1990s in Havana, and has organized events on gay and lesbian culture in Cuba. He has been invited to the International Writing Program of University of Iowa in 2001 and to workshops at the Royal Court Theatre in London.