Oppiano Licario

In 1977, a year after the death of José Lezama Lima, two editions were published in Havana and Mexico, respectively, of the manuscript of his unfinished novel Oppiano Licario.
Oppiano Licario is a continuation of Paradiso.
The survival of Paradiso in Oppiano Licario manifests itself in several ways. Despite the fact that in the last novel new characters appear, mixed with those who were already known in Paradiso. Even the new ones often have a profile similar to those of the first novel. The situations are new but interpreted by participants, who reproduce the essential characteristics of Paradiso.
In Oppiano the narrative universe of this Cuban author goes beyond the frameworks of the family saga and proposes to build what Oppiano , the protagonist of this novel, calls an insular teleology.
Here the poetic system of José Lezama Lima reaches its maximum splendor, driven by the idea that poetry and history are the ultimate redemption in a country, which in the words of the author, has failed in the essential political.
It can be said that Oppiano Licario is the continuation and complement of Paradiso’s poetic system.
Here

• Jose Cemi,
• Phocion
• Phronesis,
• Oppiano
• and Ynaca Eco Licario

they seek meaning for their lives and for the island of Cuba, possessed by a portentous desire for knowledge.
There is also a baroque eroticism, in tune with that which appears in Paradiso. However, here sexual rites place more emphasis on erotic knowledge than on purely said sensuality.