(Havana, 1966) Writer, repentista poet, researcher and educator. Director of the Chair of Improvised Poetry of the Universidad de las Artes and Assistant Director of the Centro Iberoamericano de la Décima y el Verso Improvisado, both based in Havana, Cuba. Author of 39 books of essays, novels, short stories, poetry and literature for children and young adults. A prolific and multi-award winning author, his work has been translated into several languages (English, French, German, Italian, Arabic, Bulgarian, Finnish, Portuguese, Japanese and Farsi) for anthologies and magazines. He has won major awards in Cuba, Mexico and Spain (seven poetry prizes, three novel prizes and three for short fiction). He is also the author of two plays (Pastorela de la Habana vieja, Pastorela de la Isla) and a verse film script (Ópera guajira o la fiebre de la tierra), as well as a number of verse versions of classic works by Andersen, the Grimm brothers and Perrault, published in Mexico and Cuba. He is also the author of En un lugar de la mancha (a verse version of Don Quijote), published in Cuba and Spain.