Navarro Luna, Manuel

Born Aug. 29, 1894, in Jovellanos, Matanzas; died June 16, 1966, in Havana. Cuban poet. Member of the Communist Party of Cuba from 1930.

Navarro Luna’s first collections, including Suffering Rhythms (1919) and In the Depths of the Heart (1920), contained primarily intimate, lyrical poetry. Adopting an avant-gardist position, Navarro Luna edited the journal Orto and published the collection of poems The Furrow (1928). His collection Pulse and Wave (1932) and his narrative poem The Wounded Land (1936) reveal his interest in social issues.

Between 1944 and 1959, Navarro Luna published the cycle Mambi Poems, about the heroes in the struggle for Cuban independence. The poems in the cycles That’s the Way It Is (1949) and Décimas (1949) and in the collection Mambi Odes (1961) were directed against North American imperialism and Cuban reactionary circles. The building of a new, socialist society is the theme of the cycle of poems Military Odes (1961–62).