Meeting of Literary Minds Gets Underway in Cuba

HAVANA — American writers Arthur Miller and William Styron and Colombian literary great Gabriel Garcia Marquez discussed everything from World War II to the battle over 6-year-old Elian Gonzalez during a dinner with Fidel Castro that stretched into Saturday.

Later, three of the most famous writers of the 20th century made a pilgrimage to the former residence of another literary giant: the late Ernest Hemingway.

“It was stimulating and provocative--and quite long,” Styron said of the dinner meeting with the Cuban president. “It was a very exciting occasion.”

“He talked about everything in the world,” Miller added during a tour of Hemingway’s former residence, the “Finca Vigia,” now a carefully restored museum on the outskirts of Havana.

Miller and Styron are in Cuba for a trip aimed at increasing contact between U.S. and Cuban intellectuals. They were to meet today with Cuban writers, actors and playwrights.

They also met with a leading Cuban human rights activist, Elizardo Sanchez, to hear his views concerning civil liberties in the communist country. They also visited Ricardo Alarcon, president of Cuba’s National Assembly, and Castro’s point man on Cuban-U.S. relations.

Garcia Marquez, who arrived separately in Cuba before the Americans, is a frequent visitor to Cuba and a friend of Castro. The Nobel prize laureate is best known for his novel “One Hundred Years of Solitude.”

Miller was accompanied by his wife, photographer Inge Morath.

The 85-year-old playwright is probably best known for the Pulitzer Prize-winning “Death of a Salesman” and his Tony Award-winning “The Crucible,” which looked at anti-communist witch hunts in the United States during the Cold War.

Styron came with his wife, poet Rosa Styron. The 75-year-old novelist is author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning “The Confessions of Nat Turner,” as well as “Sophie’s Choice.”