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Leonardo Padura Fuentes

Cuba鈥檚 leading novelist is coming to Dalhousie for two lectures, one in Spanish and one with English translation.

Leonardo Padura Fuentes is an investigative journalist, essayist, and writer of detective fiction. A winner of the international Dashiell Hammett prize, he is best known for his 鈥渇our seasons鈥� quartet of detective novels featuring flawed protagonist, lieutenant Mario Conde. Known as 鈥渢he Count,鈥� he鈥檚 a cop who doesn鈥檛 abide by rules and would leave the force if there wasn鈥檛 always that last intriguing case to solve. Like Ian Rankin鈥檚 music-loving, hard-drinking John Rebus, Mr. Padura鈥檚聽gumshoe battles injustice and his own weaknesses.

And, like the John Rebus mysteries, set on the seedy side of Edinburgh, Scotland, Mr. Fuentes鈥檚 novels exude a strong sense of place. Through their pages, the reader gets to explore Havana, a city of vintage cars and crumbling balconies, petty crimes and clandestine drinking holes, stifling heat and unrepressed sensuality.

His novels are incredibly popular throughout the Spanish-speaking world, and have only been translated into English within the last two years.

鈥淗e is able to deliver social critiques by way of detective novels,鈥� says John Kirk, professor with the Department of Spanish and an old friend of Mr. Padura鈥檚. The novelist and the Halifax professor met on the invitation of Cuba's Minister of Culture and subsequently collaborated on a collection of interviews with prominent figures of Cuban contemporary culture, Culture and the Cuban Revolution, published in 2001.聽

鈥淚n Cuba, in the two decades since the revolution, there鈥檚 been this tradition in literature of heroes who are pro-government,鈥� continues Dr. Kirk.

鈥淟eonardo makes a break from that tradition by presenting an anti-hero, a detective of flesh and blood. His anti-hero, like Leonardo himself, chooses to stay in Cuba. He offers a criticism of government using popular speech, but also in a high literary vein.鈥�

Born in 1955 in Havana, Mr.聽Padura faced the question of leaving Cuba, particularly in the late 鈥�80s and early 鈥�90s when living conditions deteriorated sharply as Russian aid evaporated. But, in a 2006 interview with The Guardian, he says he can鈥檛 imagine living anywhere else: 鈥淚t is my personal decision to live here 鈥� I have a very close personal relationship with this town and with this house. I need to live here to work, to write.

"Sometimes, like almost all Cubans, I would like to be far away but sometimes, when I am far away, like almost all Cubans, I would like to go back.鈥�