CAMAGÜEY.- For the Cuban Maikel Sardaña Pérez, who cultivates writing like a farmer from the humble space of the literary workshop, the harvest season begins. He has just won the “Artemis City Foundation 2024” scholarship in children's fiction.

He presented the detective novel project La vaca sin sombra (The cow without shadow), based on an idea that arose during a creative fable exercise in his gathering La Cueva del Dinosauro, in the Antonio Suárez bookstore, in Camagüey.

“I advocate literature that teaches and entertains, without falling into didacticism; for literature that makes the child happy,” says this author who graduated from the Onelio Jorge Cardoso Literary Training Center.

Nieves Cárdenas López, Maikel José Rodríguez Calviño and Pedro Fonte González were members of the jury for the scholarship convened by the Union of Writers and Artists of Cuba (Uneac) for Artemisa.

The result was made public at the Book Fair of that province. According to the rules, the winner receives 12,000 pesos with a diploma, and has six months to present a copy of the book. Uneac will propose its publication through Unicornio Publishing House.

Maikel read fragments of the work in progress The Cow Without Shadow, this Friday at the Sóngoro Cosongo club, by the poet Jesús Zamora and the singer-songwriter Antonio Batista, at the Ateneo Vietnam bookstore.

“Sometimes I question whether the fable still works,” he commented shortly before announcing the next publication in digital format of one titled The Two Rabbits, with Citmatel Publishing House.

Concerned about his training as an author, he was a workshop teacher for the writer Evelin Queipo, and without arrogance or self-sufficiency he has brought together a group in The Dinosaur Cave, a space open to reading, an opportunity to share his own texts, the first and third Fridays of the month.

“The club has given me a lot of fruit, it has given me friends and motivation. We get creative. We do exercises. Among the writers themselves we must help each other,” he emphasized.

Originally from Holguín and graduated in Imaging, he has specialized in short stories with a sense of humor. He published the children's story Alain (Ácana, 2021) in mini paper book format. He has “half-finished” a novel that last year received the boost of the Caballo de Coral scholarship from the Onelio Center.

“In literary workshops you do learn. Publishing in a publishing house is difficult. There are workshop participants with good works and it takes twenty years to be able to publish,” said the man who has also collaborated as a scriptwriter and announcer with a section on minifiction on Radio Camagüey.

Maikel Sardaña directs Ácana Publishing House, an institution where his professional progress has been seen from the job of working in the printing press and then as a specialist, before assuming his current responsibility.

Translated by Linet Acuña Quilez