Reina María Rodríguez was born in Havana in 1952, less than a decade before the Cuban revolution. Over the years, she struggled to establish a questioning, experimental poetics that both expresses and questions the values of contemporary Cuban culture. In Cuba, Rodríguez is now recognized as both a major poet and as an advocate for alternative (non-state) cultural spaces. She used her rooftop home, informally known as la azotea de Reina, as an intellectual salon that has been important in Havana for more than two decades. Winner of the Casas de las Americas prize for poetry, the UNEA Prize, and Julian de Casal prize, she is the author of a dozen books, including two that are available in English translation, Violet Island and Other Poems and Time’s Arrest, both published by Green Integer. She is recognized as one of Cuba’s most important writers.