Miguel Barnet was born in the Cuban capital of Havana in 1940. He studied social sciences at the university there and from early on developed close relationships with leading ethnologists, whose seminars he attended. From a young age he was employed as a lecturer in folklore studies at a college of education and as an editor, and belonged to the first generation of researchers at the Institute of Ethnology at the Cuban Academy of Sciences, of which he is a founding member.
Barnet is internationally known as an ethnologist, novelist, poet, scriptwriter and director. His early masterpiece, »Biografía de un Cimarrón« (1966; Eng. »The Autobiography of a Runaway Slave«, 1968), which he termed a »novela testimonio« (eyewitness novel) of represented life, established documentary writing under the label »Testimonial Literature« beyond Cuba. The work provides an account of the life of a fugitive black slave, put together from a long series of interviews with the subject. Along with the history of the island – from a society of Spanish slaveholders to the war of independence to dependence on the USA before the revolution – a special blend of African myth and Catholicism within that culture emerges from memorable images. Over sixty editions of this novel, which has achieved classic status, have since been published, and in 1971 Hans Werner Henze set it to music.
Barnet’s documentary novel »El Gallego« (1981; t: The Galician), about a Galician emigrant whose dreams never come true in Havana yet he decides to stay on the island, was made into a film by the author and went on to receive the distinguished Spanish film prize Goya in 1990. Following three more novels – of which »La canción de Rachel« (1969; Eng. »Rachel’s Song«, 1991) was also made into a film – the most recent work to appear in Germany is the study »Cultos afrocubanos« (1995; Eng. »Afrocuban Religions«, 2001). Here Barnet again documents the vital influence of African cults on contemporary Cuban culture.
Barnet has been awarded many prizes both in his native country and abroad. He received the highest Cuban award for culture, the Alejo Carpentier Medaille, as well as the Order of the first-degree Félix Varela, Cuba’s national literary prize, an honorary doctorate from the University of Havana, the Spanish García Lorca prize, the German Cross of Merit, the Berlin Order of Merit and most recently the Premio Juan Rulfo. In 2002 the international book fair in Mexico was dedicated to Barnet’s life and work. He has received grants from the Guggenheim Foundation and the German Academic Exchange Service and was Cuba’s representative at UNESCO’s executive council. Barnet is a founding member and vice president of the Cuban writers’ and artists’ association UNEAC, a Chevalier of the Ordre National du mérite and co-founder and current director of the Fernando Ortiz Foundation as well as a member of the Cuban Parliament. He lives in Havana.

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