The intellectual's dilemmas in focus: Narratives in transit in Memories of Underdevelopment

Abstract

This article evaluates the homonym works Memories of Underdevelopment by Edmundo Desnoes and Tomás Gutiérrez Alea considering the stylistic procedures adopted in each one (book and movie) in order to discuss their political value and the role of intellectuals in post-revolutionary Cuba, destabilizing their point of view. The article examines the complementarity of ideas of both the writer and the director. Their work on different materials (literary texts, script, essays and films) intensifies the questions posed by each artist, resulting in successive “extensions” to deconstruct the idea of “adaptation” as one-way road.