• Submitted by: admin
• Arts and Culture
• Literature
• Music
• 12 / 19 / 2006

By Marta Sarabia

The rain didn't stop us from attending the launching of the book " Que Levante la Mano la Guitarra", " Let the Guitar Raise its Hand" written by authors Victor Casaus and Luis Rogelio Nogueras, and that also the statement that there will be enough books to be sold would be true, because an hour before that event started, the books had sold out , as Victor and Silvio continued to sign those in the hands of the crowd that was present.

Author Eduardo Heras Leon, National Editors Award Winner and writer and movie director Victor Casaus, Director of the Pablo de la Torriente Brau Center, Neida Izquierdo,widow of Luis Rogelio Nogueras and Silvio Rodriguez were in charge of presenting the book.

Almost forty years ago, the Caiman Barbudo Magazine organized a poetry and music event titled " Teresita y Nosotros", and among those invited was Silvio, and he sang , but that music for the majority of those present was a new music, with new lyrics.

Eduardo Heras affirmed that during that evening he was attending to the birth of one of the greatest trobadours of the Twentieth Century.

According to Casaus, the fact that his book is seeing its sixth edition, twenty two years after it was first published, is a demonstration of the triumph of friendship. Silvio's work is both intense and immense, and to this explosion of imagination, the presentation of this book is dedicated today.

Silvio, reminds that " Wichy ( Nogueras ) is who is absent, but really, for those of us that knew him, is more than the absent, its the beloved friend, and its also a man that with farsightiness, intellectual brilliancy, joyful character, brotherly, wonderful, I could add, is accompaining us in the memory and sometimes in our every day life actions. Wichy is still here with us."

He didn't forget Eduardo Castaneda, that worked at the Instituto del Libro ( the Cuban Book Institute ) and was the first one that wanted to make an anthology of his songs around the years 68 and 69, but that project never matured.

Two or three years later, Victor and Wichy talked to him of the possibility of writing this book about his songs, with interviews and analysis, and that had to be that way,because it was necessary that he talked, that he voiced his opinions to the world, and for those reasons is that this book has so much about reflexion.

Silvio gave thanks to the Instituto del Libro, and the Pablo de la Torriente Brau Center for this edition,and above all for having making possible that it is sold only in our national currency.

This sixth edition, with an introduction by Victor and an epilogue by Silvio, is described as a Party of Poetry and Friendship, and all present coincided in dedicating the event to Luis Rogelio Nogueras.

Source: Cubarte