December 6, 2019
Dear Ms. Paterson, Katherine — it’s certainly been an adventure trying to find you, off and on since late summer, when I heard about My Brigadista Year and its coming out in paperback in October. It looked like a celebratory occasion we (the Boston-Cuba solidarity coalition and our academic compatriots) might be able to help highlight. We would still like to do that.
We take good pride in the programs we have been able to organize previously to teach about the Literacy Campaign, including last year’s showing of “Maestra” and follow-up presentation and discussion with, I believe, the seven-year-old Brigadista you refer to in the book’s concluding note, Griselda Aguilera Cabrera. Previous to that, in 2016, we hosted Luisa Campos, the Director of the Literacy Museum in Havana and distributed a good number of copies of A Year Without Sundays. I am sure you share our sadness and challenge that that work is not currently readily and easily available.
A program with you on My Brigadista Year would be nothing short of magnificent in adding to these celebration presentations honoring the Campaign.
Those programs can be found in the announcements of the Boston-Cuba Solidarity Coalition and the National Network on Cuba, at the web addresses listed below. Please note that we were able to organize a week-long festival to celebrate and honor the work of Cuba’s foremost novelist Leonardo Padura that are useful in considering our capacity to generate resources, publicity, and venues appropriate to the possibilities at hand. I mention this since your other works certainly hold a wide interest and regard among their readers and admirers that makes for expanded possibilities should that be of interest.
If a single or multiple presentation program is at all feasible, I’d be pleased to pursue your interest, preferences and requirements. If a visit to Boston is not practical, perhaps we could interest you in some more modest teleconference possibilities that would require little or no travel. An interview/Q&A program on Brigadista to supplement the two videos on youtube that Candlewick Press produced would certainly be a useful contribution.
I trust this initial inquiry with you will be received in the holiday season spirit in which it has been composed, if only to let you know how appreciated your work is.
I do hope to hear from you and that we can work on some possibility that is most to your liking.
Very truly yours,
Peter Miller
peterm@igc.org
(617) 734-1910
july26.org
peterbmiller.wordpress.com
Previous Literacy Campaign program postings and information:
https://july26.org/2018/01/17/a-cultural-history-of-cuba-and-the-literacy-campaign-of-1961/ and http://nnoc.info/luisa-campos-speaks-in-boston-531-and-61/
On the Leonardo Padura festival:
https://july26.org/october-2017-leonardo-padura-festival/
july26.org 