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The author

Antonio López Sánchez. Havana, 1973. Everything he has written, in one place.

In short

Antonio López Sánchez was born in Havana on 16 January 1973. He holds a degree in Social Communication from the University of Havana, graduated from the ninth course of the Onelio Jorge Cardoso Centre for Literary Training in 2007, and completed the postgraduate programme Crítica con Arte at the José Martí International Institute of Journalism in 2022.

He has published fourteen books since 2001, across heroic fantasy, horror, children's literature, poetry, and essays and interviews on the Cuban Nueva Trova. He has spent his working life in the Cuban cultural press, and he lives and writes in Alamar, the Havana district facing the sea.

This page is the index of the whole body of work: the books, the journalism, the stories, the poems and the novels still looking for a publisher. Every entry links to the page where it can be read in full.

Everything here is in Spanish

The whole of Antonio López Sánchez's work is written in Spanish, and none of it has been translated yet. There is no English edition of any book, and no translated sample: what this site offers a publisher is the original, complete and ready to send.

We are open to offers to translate any part of it, into any language: a single book, the whole fiction, the three volumes on the Nueva Trova, the poetry, the stories or the unpublished novels. Rights for editions and translations outside Cuba are free, and the enquiry goes to the author's literary representation.

Rights and how they work Write about rights

Record

Thirty years in the Cuban cultural press, in the order the files keep it.

  • 2026 Since February, again part of the communications team at the National Museum of Fine Arts, Havana.
  • 2024 and 2025 Press work for the website of the Cuban Book Chamber during the Havana International Book Fairs.
  • 2023 From July to December, communications team at the National Museum of Fine Arts.
  • 2023 At the request of the Cuban Book Institute, directs the special edition of El Cañonazo, the daily paper of the Havana International Book Fair, and its ten daily issues during the event.
  • 2022 Completes the postgraduate programme Crítica con Arte at the José Martí International Institute of Journalism.
  • 2020 to 2022 Promotion and communications team of the Cuban Book Chamber; among other duties, editor in chief of the magazine Correo del libro.
  • 2019 Press work for the Diario del Festival during the 61st International Festival of New Latin American Cinema.
  • 2019 to 2021 In charge of Pantallas de papel, the book review section of the digital portal En vivo, of the Cuban Institute of Radio and Television.
  • 2018 From November, contributes to Cubaliteraria: interviews with writers, book reviews and literary texts.
  • 2018 Contributes to AM PM Magazine: music writing, reviews of books on Cuban music and of records by Cuban artists.
  • 2018 to 2021 Contributor to the literature section of the magazine Cartelera, with reviews of Cuban authors.
  • 2015 to 2017 Journalist for the Cuban Book Chamber on the Cooking and Food Culture project; regular contributor to Cubapaladar and the magazine Artechef.
  • 2014 to 2015 Staff writer at the magazine Pionero, Casa Editora Abril.
  • 2001 to 2010 Part of the editorial team at Editorial de la Mujer: the magazine Mujeres, the tabloid Muchacha and the site Mujeres en Internet.
  • 2002 From this year, publishes regularly in digital outlets: La Jiribilla, La Ventana of Casa de las Américas, the site of the Hermanos Saíz Association, Caminos of the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Centre, Canto de Todos and Esquife, mostly on cultural subjects.
  • 1998 From this year, publishes in La Calle del Medio, Alma Máter, La Gaceta, El Caimán Barbudo, Juventud Rebelde, El Correo de Cuba, La Corchea, the paper Cubadisco and the literary supplement El Tintero.
  • 1998 to 2000 On the staff of the Pablo de la Torriente Brau Cultural Centre: press officer, coordinator of the monthly concert series A guitarra limpia, and editor of the Boletín Memoria.
  • 1998 Graduates in Social Communication from the University of Havana.
The full record, in Spanish

Awards

Seven awards and honourable mentions between 2002 and 2026, among them the Premio La Rosa Blanca of UNEAC for Las guerreras de la luz and, in 2026 alone, the First Prize in Poetry of the Premio Farraluque and the Premio Colateral Yasmina Calcines.

All the awards

The books

Fourteen published books, from 2001 onwards. Fiction first, then the three volumes of interviews and research on the Nueva Trova, then poetry and the collective volumes he has texts in. Each page carries the synopsis, the author's own note, excerpts and the details a publisher asks for.

Fiction

The Nueva Trova

Poetry

Collective volumes

Anthologies and shared volumes that include texts by the author. Rights offered here cover only what he wrote, never the complete volume.

The catalogue, with covers

The journalism

Twenty-two signed pieces, from a 1994 interview with the singer-songwriter Carlos Varela to a 2021 piece on electric guitars in the trova. Interviews, book reviews and essays, almost all of them with music nearby.

These pages exist only in Spanish. The line under each title says what it is about.

Interviews

  • El riesgo de buscar Proyecto Voces, School of Communication, University of Havana · 1994 A 1994 conversation with the singer-songwriter Carlos Varela, just after the album Como los peces. It stayed unpublished for thirty years: the magazine that commissioned it never appeared.
  • Colores al desnudo Revista Muchacha · December 2005 The painter on the palette knife he found while looking for something else, on faces that are neither male nor female, and on what he steals from Van Gogh, from Lam and from his own father.
  • Rebeldes con causa Revista Muchacha · November 2005 An afternoon at the Patio de María with the leader of Hipnosis, a metal band with three women in it, in a scene where women are scarce.
  • Palabras desde una flauta Revista Muchacha · June 2009 During an interview with a flautist, a small miracle happens: it is her flute that answers the questions.
  • La trova canta a dos lentes La Jiribilla · March 2010 Two photographers, Alain Gutiérrez and Kaloian Santos, explain how you photograph a sound.
  • Sigue pariendo corazones Revista Mujeres · July 2009 The house where she learned everything, Las D’Aida, the Buena Vista Social Club and two turns in front of a camera, told by her in 2009.

Reviews

  • Locuras de pincel June 2014 El Loquito, the cartoon character created by René de la Nuez, returns in an anthology by Axel Li, and with him a whole line of Cuban graphic humour that said what could not be said.
  • ¿El verde de la desesperanza? August 2014 A novel by Marvelys Marrero enters childhood without sweetening it. Do its paths lead to hopelessness?
  • Para sonar en buen cubano A review of a book of interviews with major Cuban musicians, first published in La Gaceta de Cuba. From Juan Formell to Orishas.
  • A velo descubierto las palabras June 2014 Helen Hernández Hormilla interviews several Cuban women writers. Among other subjects, at length: what feminism is and is not.
  • Una historia de un siglo March 2014 Leonardo Acosta travels a hundred years of jazz on the island. A vital book for understanding, and enjoying, the history of that music in Cuba.
  • Una isla de crimen y enigma June 2014 An anthology by Leopoldo Luis and Rafael Grillo tries to give the island back the crime story that the Special Period left without magazines.
  • ¡Salud, maestro H. Zumbado! May 2013 A review written as if it were a television programme, for a master of humour who deserved that joke.
  • Sonando la lira y el bongó May 2013 Carpentier's La música en Cuba returns to the bookshops with the final chapter the author himself had removed.

Chronicles and essays

  • La persistencia de las memorias y del subdesarrollo La Jiribilla · August 2008 Forty years after the premiere of Tomás Gutiérrez Alea's film, its relevance is still being argued over.
  • Los 75 del futuro La Jiribilla · January 2015 Seventy-five years of the charanga that is the emblem of Cuban music. A journey from the astonishments of childhood, and a father's wisdom, to the discoveries of adulthood, with the Aragón playing throughout.
  • Y otra seguirá sonando La Jiribilla · May 2012 The guitar of Cuban trova sings, from Sindo Garay to the filin, from the Nueva Trova to the sound of today.
  • Al César, lo que es del filin La Jiribilla · November 2012 The ninetieth birthday of the man who made the filin a language of his own.
  • Trovar con los pies y bailar con la cabeza La Jiribilla · December 2012 On the birthday of Los Van Van, a curious chapter of Juan Formell's work: is he a trovador with an orchestra?
  • En su primer medio vinilo La Jiribilla · June 2012 Fifty years of the singer-songwriter, told record by record.
  • Trova eléctrica (y fregada) La Jiribilla · September 2021 A list made while washing up: the electric guitars that found their way into Cuban trova, from the GES to Habana Abierta.
  • Los diez (y tantos) discos de trova que debes escuchar AM:PM A run through every age of Cuban trova and some of its finest albums. A list for beginner trova addicts and for seasoned listeners alike.
  • De historias, nombres y apellidos Traditional trova, filin and Nueva Trova are not the same thing, and here is who is who, and why.

The stories

Eleven complete stories, each with a page of its own. Some come from published books, some from books still with their publisher, some belong to nobody yet.

The story room

The poems

Twelve poems and eight glosas. A glosa is an old Spanish form: the poet takes a stanza by someone else and writes four ten-line stanzas, each ending in one of its lines.

Poems

Glosas

Glosas on other poets are a common practice among décima writers. Here I chose two towering peaks, José Martí and José Lezama Lima, to hold a kind of dialogue with their verses. This rhymed room holds only a small sample of a much larger body of work that is still waiting for its pages. In the meantime, here, as a gift, are some of the Glosas Martianas and the Glozama Rimas.

The poetry room

The De-Cimitas

Twenty décimas written from the author's own photographs, each image and its ten lines published as a single piece. A décima is the ten-line stanza of Cuban poetry and song. One of them outgrew the form and has a room of its own, Sonata de la lluvia, in three movements.

See them with their photographs Sonata de la lluvia Poems in his own voice

The unpublished novels

Four finished novels that have not yet found a publisher. Each has its synopsis, the author's own note and the excerpts he chose. The complete manuscripts can be sent the same day they are asked for.

  • Preguntas. Un día en la vida de Juan Pérez Novel A single day can fit in a novel. Even if, at times, the questions overflow.
  • Mis diarios de cama Novel · for adult readers A woman's diary, with her duties, her loves, her sorrows. A novel told in the first person by its own protagonist.
  • Sonidos Horror novel The search for the perfect sound breeds a murderer in the nineteenth century, and unleashes a story of horrors and deaths that will echo into the present, and perhaps the future.
  • Palabras Fantasy novel A pursuit across several dimensions leads to the Library. Past and present will cross their lines. Ambition will crave power. Minutes may be centuries, but love will remain untouched.
The unpublished room

Contact

For readers, press and invitations, write to the author directly. For rights, editions and translations outside Cuba, write to his representation. Nothing on this site has been translated yet, and every part of it is open to an offer.

Write to the author Write about rights Literary representation