Enrico Mario Santí

Enrico Mario Santí (born 1 July 1950) is a Cuban-American writer, poet, and scholar of Spanish American Literature known for his critical essays and annotated editions of Latin American classics, including works by Octavio Paz, Pablo Neruda, and Guillermo Cabrera Infante.

A frequent political commentator and art critic, he is also a sculptor and voice actor.

As a child, Santí emigrated from Cuba to the United States, where he has had an extensive career as a professor in several universities.

Currently, he is research professor at Claremont Graduate University, in Claremont, California.

Born to a middle-class family from the eastern end of Cuba, Santí emigrated to the United States in October 1962, shortly after the Cuban Revolution.

Raised in Miami, educated at Vanderbilt and Yale, he obtained his PhD at the latter institution, where he studied alongside scholars José Juan Arrom and Emir Rodríguez Monegal.

Santí went on to teach at Duke University, Cornell, Georgetown, and the University of Kentucky.

In 1983, while an associate professor at Cornell, Santí was made Clark Distinguished Teacher of the Year.

Since 1984, he has labored on collecting and organizing Paz's literary production.

Throughout the years, the relationship between the Mexican poet and Santí grew to be a close one: of Santí's "Introduction″ to El laberinto de la soledad, Octavio Paz himself wrote: "Yours is the first essay in which I feel really understood and read."

Between 1990 and 1999, Santí served as one of four rotating editors of the journal Cuban Studies. After his service as editor, he remained a member of the journal's advisory board and, in 2015, he was appointed one of five Senior Honorary Members.

Throughout his career, he has received Guggenheim, Woodrow Wilson, ACLS, NEH, and Fulbright fellowships.

A few years later, in 1996, he became the youngest holder of the Emilio Bacardí Visiting Chair in Cuban Studies at the University of Miami.

Santí has also been the recipient of life-achievement awards from the Southern California Cuban-American Cultural Institute (1999), Patronato José Martí (2000), Mexico's CONACULTA (2005) and Sigma Delta Pi, Hispanic Honor Society (2010).

In 2000, he became the first William T. Bryan Endowed Chair in Hispanic Studies at the University of Kentucky, where four years later, in 2004, he was also awarded a University Research Professorship for his outstanding research contributions.

Santí has authored fourteen books, edited eighteen volumes (including three with Cuban-American professor and author Nivia Montenegro) and published over one hundred articles, essays, and interviews.

His six critical and annotated editions of classics of Latin American literature–Pablo Neruda's Canto general, Octavio Paz's Libertad bajo palabra and El laberinto de la soledad, Fernando Ortiz's Contrapunteo cubano del tabaco y el azúcar, Guillermo Cabrera Infante's Tres tristes tigres, and Reinaldo Arenas's El mundo alucinante–are used widely in college and university courses around the world.

A significant part of Santí's research has been dedicated to the study of Octavio Paz's life and work.

A published poet himself, in 2014 Santí began translating poetry from American English into Cuban Spanish, including works by Wallace Stevens and Hart Crane (in addition to several Cuban-American poets).

His translations have appeared in many journals and, recently, in a book of poems by Ricardo Pau-Llosa, titled Intruder Between Rivers / Intruso entre ríos.

As a voice actor, Santí has recorded three voice narratives of works by Guillermo Cabrera Infante, published in 2016 and 2017 as Audible audiobooks.

In 2019, the Pomona Latino Art Museum featured his wooden sculptures as part of a group exhibition titled "Mes de la Hispanidad".