Mafalda: Back in Havana

She forms part of the fiction characters included in the Gallery of Popular Idols of the Casa Rosada (Pink House), seat of the executive power in her native Argentina.

She does not come alone, since she is accompanied by some of the dearest characters of Argentine cartoonist Joaquin Salvador Lavado Tejon –better known as Quino. Exhibition “Los mundos de Quino: un homenaje” (The Worlds of Quino: a tribute), is now open to the public at the Galeria Latinoamericana of Casa de las Americas.

The exhibition, which takes place within the context of the 57th edition of the Casa de las Americas Literary Award, will close a graphic cycle at this Havanan institution: the Year of Drawing.
 
At first, her father Quino thought to place her as format in an electrical appliance ad, but she remained forgotten in a drawer for two years, as it usually happens with the best things, hidden in a folder, until she was officially born on September 29, 1964 in Primera Plana weekly. Congratulations to the world!

At the age of 51, she hasn’t stopped to be the mirror of an entire generation that reveres her, waves along with her banners of absolute feminism, and at the same time questions events ranging from mass culture to Latin American dictatorships. Rather than the life of a graphed 6-year-old girl, Quino shaped a time Molotov cocktail, and put in her dialogues, arguments that go beyond time and space.

In the 21st century, Mafalda tells off with the same force as she urges.

Guille’s sister, Felipe’s friend, Susanita, Manolito, Miguelito and little Libertad, is an eternal symbol and beyond: a model of imitation for all who believe in progress hoping that a better world is possible, especially because it depends on us.

Cubasi Translation Staff