EÇA IN HAVANA

Eusébio Leal Spengler

The traces of the time that Eça de Queirós spent in Havana are still alive in the memory of the places in which he lived. Archival documents and periodicals from the era offer some of the author’s impressions of the Cuba of his day, especially the silent hurt that pervaded his feelings about a decaying world that had been founded on slavery. The contradictions and events of Cuban society left him anything but indifferent.
Eça lived in that state of upheaval which the environment engenders in every foreigner who has just arrived in the tropics – a factor that also explains his travels through Canada and the United States. In the midst of periods of intense work, he witnessed a new drama: the import of Chinese coolies, who had been arriving on the island since 1847 and were variegating the country with their culture and their mastery of agricultural techniques. This issue was of particular interest to him, and in this sense we can include him among the precursors of the fight for human and minority rights. His daily protests and the courage of his actions in favour of the oppressed and the exploited led him to call for an end to the foul trade.
Deep-rooted Habanera tradition states that de Queirós’ favourite place was ‘La Columnata Egipciana’ Café, which occupies the ground floor of a small manorial-style house of noble Mudéjar origins that had once been the home of the Torres de Ayala family.
In deciding to reopen ‘La Columnata’, the Old Havana restoration project sought to make the famous Portuguese novelist its own and to ensure that the site will perpetuate the truly noble purpose of paying homage to him, as well as to remind visitors that the marks he left on the land of Cuba are still there to be seen.