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FERNANDO MARTINEZ HEREDIA
Committed to life and his dreams
Madeleine Sautié
Rodríguez / PHOTO: KaLOIAN SANTOS
• FERNANDO Martínez Heredia, winner
of the 2006 National Prize for Social Science, to
whom the 20th International Book Fair is dedicated,
is often called a major thinker, a fervent
philosopher whose substantial work on a broad range
of topics allows for a profound understanding of
contemporary realities.
 Nevertheless,
his lineage has made this man with a romantic
singer's name an austere historian. It is his Cuban
nature, his sense of who he is, which inspires him
to arduously investigate and uncover the essentials
of whatever issue he takes up, to produce an
indispensable reference work.
A profound love of Cuba must have
motivated you to consider an investigative work "to
analyze the country which is Cuba and what it should
be." What does it mean to you to be Cuban?
To participate in a very specific
collective and a very particular sensibility,
different from any other in the world and to
identify with a history, a society, a project which
has toiled without rest, for almost a century and a
half for liberty, justice, sovereignty and a future
of all, for all."
I started out in politics as a
reaction to the dictatorship and to the terrible
poverty around me. For both reasons, I had to go
farther, in search of a profound revolution of
national liberation and social justice. Later I
discovered that this was the same thing as being a
socialist.
A feeling this intellectual
experiences, which cannot be hidden with words, as
he contemplates the study and investigation of the
paths Cuba has taken since it decided to change its
destiny some 50 years ago:
Above all, admiration. The people of
this island have overcome the impossible so many
times; they have sacrificed themselves en masse for
liberty, created a nation of the most discordant
elements, made a profound and ambitious liberation
revolution, facing the greatest enemy humanity has
seen and gone farther than anyone else in
internationalism. And when it seems that they are
about to stop and give up, they are capable of
surprising everyone and continue struggling.
The social scientist is also modest,
although he concedes that along with his gentle,
firm manner of speaking, a powerful appeal can be
heard. How do you achieve it?
If that is the case, it is not
because I have attempted it. Certainly, I have some
deep convictions and I am guided by ideals. At the
same time I submit to the criticism of the world in
which I live and the project I love, as rigorously
as necessary, precisely because these are the
present and the future to which my colleagues and I
devote our lives and dreams.
Martínez Heredia finds poetry in his
investigative work:
Poetry is the greatest gift found in
words and is within the reach of all, ranging from
the flowers people pick and offer, to masterful
works. A historian, as any human being, enjoys and
consumes poetry or takes a chance at creating it.
What place does Martí hold in your
investigations? How much do you owe him with respect
to your career?
Martí is a colossal social thinker.
He has nurtured my intellectual starting points, my
themes, hypotheses and intuitions, since I was very
young through today. I always return to his work and
I always learn or come across clues.
Martínez Heredia has described the
Cuban revolution as "a gigantic factory of the
material dreams are made of." Among his first
desires after the triumph of the Revolution was the
establishment of a library in his home town. His
love for books is obvious. Is the Book Fair a dream
come true? How does the tribute feel, for a man who
considers books essential?
I have always been pleased, at times
felt great pleasure in bookstores; I've spent enough
time in them. The Cuban fairs are another thing,
popular cultural festivals in which books and people
are the protagonists, nurturing each other. They
have never seemed like big marketplaces to me.
That the Fair should be dedicated to
me is hard to understand. It is as if I were being
praised for breathing. •
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