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Following the steps of Roberto Fernández Retamar into the future

F retamar y RaùlFigures around the world mourn the poet’s farewell at 89 years of age. Setting aside the grief, they speak of gratitude and of his abiding presence. Just a few months ago, the distinguished intellectual Roberto Fernández Retamar, on the occasion of the 60th anniversary of Casa de las Américas, called on those present to remember the future. The enigmatic appeal was absolutely appropriate, bearing in mind that from its first day the Casa that has done so much for continental unity has promoted the perpetual brilliance, present, and future, of the region.

Figures from around the world mourn the poet’s farewell at 89 years of age. Setting aside the grief, they speak of gratitude and of his abiding presence. “Dear Roberto, thank you for leaving us your work, your lucidity, and commitment,” wrote Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez on his Twitter account.

“We are left with his ideas that inspire the path of free peoples who will keep his legacy of resistance alive,” said Evo Morales, president of Bolivia.

U.S. writer Margaret Randall commented: “Over the years, Retamar was always a beacon for us, a political and cultural reference, and a friend. We mourn his death and celebrate his life.”

“Retamar leaves us as a legacy his example of a self-sacrificing revolutionary, a sensitive poet, a dialogical intellectual, a man dedicated to humanity’s most noble causes. To his family and to my family at the Casa de las Américas, a fraternal embrace of resurrection,” wrote the Brazilian intellectual Frei Betto.

Ernest Pépin, the Guadeloupean writer, said that he will remember Retamar as a man who served a revolution that has always stayed the course.

With words from César Vallejo, Peruvian poet Hildebrando Pérez Grande insisted: “His cadaver is full of the world.”

Spanish writer Selena Millares is convinced his words will always be with us: “Something no one will ever be able to erase.”

Dominican poet Chiqui Vicioso remembered him as “a reaffirmation of our utopias;” and Venezuelan writer Freddy Ñañez summed up: “The words left by our host, our father Calibán, are arrows stopped in time that continue to extend his life with the possibilities left intact in poetry and pure ethical presence… there will be a future to follow in the footsteps of the great Roberto Fernández Retamar.”

(Granma)

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