Latin Americanist correspondences: rereading Fernandez Retamar's Caliban

The article proposes a rereading of the essay Caliban (1971) by Cuban Roberto Fernandez Retamar by focusing on its intertextualities with the dense discursive context of epistolary debates, open and private letters which complicated the relations of the "great intellectual family" (Claudia Gilman) assembled around the Cuban revolution until the outbreak of the Padilla affair. The ideological radicalization which characterizes the essay (an aspect criticism has abundantly pointed out) has a reverse side: one can observe, in fact, a strong effort to recover intellectual links by appealing to topics, issues and principles favored by the discourse of the Latin American left consolidated in previous years. The essay, in the light of the correspondence exchanged with Angel Rama, can be read as a sort of open letter addressing those who formed part of the intellectual (and affective) network constructed by Casa de las Americas.