Our Critic and Essayist Rufo Caballero Dies

The Cuban critic and essayist Rufo Caballero died here of a heart attack. He was 45. He died on Wednesday night, family sources confirmed, and he was cremated. Born in 1966, he left behind an extensive body of writing, profound and sometimes controversial, about film, the visual arts, and music.



Caballero held his doctorate in art and was a senior professor in the University of Havana´s Faculty of Arts and Letters. As a critic of the audiovisual media, he published articles in the print media and appeared on television.


Some of his outstanding books include Un hombre solo y una calle oscura. Los roles de género en el cine negro (A Man Alone and a Dark Street. The Roles of Gender in Film Noir), published by the Cuban Union of Writers and Artists; and Cine latinoamericano: Un pez que huye (Latin American Cinema: A Fleeing Fish), printed by the Autor 2005 Foundation and the Cuban publishing hourse Arte y Literatura in 2007.


Caballero won numerous awards and honors, including the Lya Kostakowsky Hispanic-American Essay prize, the Ibero-American and Caribbean Film Essay prize, and the National Critics´ Prize. In 2003, he received the National Culture Distiction.