Podcast: Interview with Cuban Poet Heberto Padilla (1982)

Heberto Padilla in 1981. (Photo: Elisa Cabot)

From 1981 to 1989, I was assistant producer and co-host of the radio show On the Arts, at CJRT-FM (today Jazz 91.1) in Toronto. With the late Tom Fulton, who was the show's prime host and producer, we did a half-hour interview program where we talked to writers and artists from all fields. In 1982, I sat down with Cuban poet and exile, Heberto Padilla. 

Though he was an initial supporter of Fidel Castro, Heberto Padilla's public criticism of the regime led to his jailing in 1971 under the charge of "plotting against the powers of the state." He was released after a month of brutal interrogation, but his writing was subsequently banned in his native Cuba. An international campaign allowed him and his family to eventually leave for the United States in 1980. Heberto Padilla lived in exile from Cuba until his passing in 2000 at the age of 68.

– Kevin Courrier.

Here is the full interview with Heberto Padilla as it aired on CJRT-FM in 1982.

Kevin Courrier is a freelance writer/broadcaster, film critic and author (Dangerous Kitchen: The Subversive World of Zappa, Randy Newman's American Dreams, 33 1/3 Captain Beefheart's Trout Mask Replica, Artificial Paradise: The Dark Side of The Beatles Utopian Dream). Courrier teaches part-time film courses to seniors through the LIFE Institute at Ryerson University in Toronto and other venues. His forthcoming book is Talking Out of Turn: A Collection of Reviews, Interviews and Remembrances currently being assembled on Blogger. 

Tom Fulton was the host and producer of On the Arts for CJRT-FM in Toronto for 23 years, beginning in 1975.