He was born on December 26th, 1904 and died in París on April 24th, 1980. In 1921 he began his journalistic work in La Discusión and later in Chic, El Heraldo de Cuba and Social. In 1923 he is appointed Chief of Staff of Hispania and, next year, of Carteles. He took part in the Protesta de los Trece (Protest of the Thirteen) (1923) and he joined the Grupo Minorista. He is among the founders of Revista de Avance, in 1927. From those years he is imprisoned under the charge of “communist”. The first version of his novel ¡Ecue-Yamba-O! was written in jail. Being freed he arranged “new music concerts”, together with Amadeo Roldán. Works by Stravinsky, Poulenc, Eric Satie, Malipiero, among others, are played by first time in Cuba along those concerts.
He collaborated in Musicalia, Revista de la Habana, Aventura en Mal Tiempo. In 1928 he wrote the script of La Rebambaramba and El milagro de Anaquillé ballets; music by Amadeo Roldán. He met Robert Desnos in Havana and with his passport and I.D. he surreptiously left the country and went to France. There he worked as Chief of Staff of Musicalia magazine, besides colaborating in Bifur, Documents, Revista de Oriente, Cahier du Sud. Andre Breton invited him to collaborate in La Revolution Surrealiste. In 1930 he is appointed Chief of Staff of Imán. He collaborated in Revista Cubana, Conservatorio, La Gaceta del Caribe, Orígenes, Nuestro Tiempo. He made musicological researches, specially in Santiago de Cuba, which allow revalorizations concerning Manuel Saumell and the forgotten Esteban Salas. Next year he settled in Venezuela, where he collaborated in El Nacional from Caracas (1946-1958).
When the Cuban Revolution triumphed, on January 1st, 1959, he returned to his motherland. He was appointed Vice President of the National Council of Culture. When the UNEAC (National Association of Cuban Writers and Artists) was created, he was among its Vice Presidents, besides being one in charge of Unión Magazine, together with Nicolás Guillén the National Poet of Cuba. In 1968 he was appointed Counsellor Minister for Cultural Affairs to the Cuban Embassy in Paris.
He was Jury in important Cuban and foreign contests. He occasionally collaborated in the most important Cuban publishings (Granma Newspaper, Casa de las Américas, Unión, Bohemia Magazines, among others) and in numerous foreign ones. He wrote the scripts for Ecue-Yamba-O (1928) and La pasión negra (Black Passion) (1932), both with music by Marius François Gaillard, and Las puertas del sol (The Gates of Sun) (1970), with music by Michel Puig. He collabotated with Darius Milhaud in the cantata Invocations, with Paul Claudel in Le livre de Christophe Colomb for radio and with René Dahon Maeterlink in La princese Maleine. He translated into French Pablo Picasso´s poem El entierro del Conde de Orgaz. (“Count Orgaz Burial”). From El reino de este mundo (“The Kingdom of this World”) his novels has been translated into numerous languages.
In 1975, the title of: Doctor Honoris Causa in Hispanic Language and Literature from the University of Havana was conferred to him, among others acknowledgements and distinctions. He received the international awards: “Cino del Duca” and “Alfonso Reyes 1975”. As well as the Miguel de Cervantes award on Literature in 1978.