Nicolás Guillén and Ilya Ehrenburg: The History of a Creative Friendship

The paper dwells on the contacts of the Cuban poet Nicolás Guillén with the Soviet writer Ilya Ehrenburg. They first became acquainted in 1937 and met again in 1949 in Moscow, the same year their correspondence began, which lasted until Ehrenburg’s death in 1967. Guillén shared his personal and creative plans with his Soviet correspondent, described his work on the collection La Paloma de Vuelo Popular (1951–1954, published 1958), sent new poems to Moscow, and discussed upcoming trips to the Soviet Union. Ilya Ehrenburg was among the first translators of Guillén’s poems into Russian, wrote the preface to the first Soviet edition of Guillén’s poetry (Stikhi, 1952), and helped bring the Cuban author’s works to the USSR. Although, following the Cuban Revolution, the number of Soviet-Cuban contacts increased and Guillén repeatedly invited his Soviet friend to visit the “Island of Freedom,” Ehrenburg never managed to travel there.