SOURCE: Holzapfel, Tamara. “Inconsolable Memories and its Russian Counterpart.” Latin American Literary Review 11, no. 21 (fall-winter 1982): 21-6.

In the following essay, Holzapfel compares a novel by the Cuban writer Edmondo Desnoes to Envy, finding in both a literary response to the fate of the individual in a mass society.

The theme of the fate of the individual human being in a mass society has been a major preoccupation of twentieth century literature as a whole, but has had special resonance in post-revolutionary societies, as has been the case in Russia and, more recently, in Cuba. In Russia this theme can be traced through over half a century of literary history with meaningful patterns of development clearly emerging. The Cuban experience thus far parallels and echoes the literary debate that was carried on in the early Soviet period. Like the Russian Revolution, the Cuban Revolution allowed from the beginning a...