Iván Acosta was born in Los Hoyos, a neighborhood in the eastern province of Santiago de Cuba. Playwright, theater director, filmmaker, songwriter and producer of Latin Jazz concerts, Acosta has lived in Hell’s Kitchen, New York City, since December of 1961, the year he fled Cuba. His play El Super, gained international recognition and migrated to the big screen in 1979, winning more than 20 awards in international film festivals, and hailed as the most important and emblematic film of Cuban exile. Acosta is a founding member of the Cuban Cultural Center of New York (1972). With a Cuban Song in the Heart (Un-Gyve Press) features the artwork from 280 album covers from Iván Acosta’s collection of over 5,000 long-playing discs—a collection which hangs in the living room of his New York City home and which includes the two albums that he and his sister smuggled out of Cuba on that August 28th, 1961; and by which he weaves a story of real life passages from his childhood in Santiago de Cuba and “tidbits of history that lay dormant in those album covers,” local lore and landmark events. A double album compilation on Un-Gyve Records, packaged as a CD or in an alternate vinyl LP edition, and an exhibition of the album artwork coincides with the publication of With a Cuban Song In The Heart, which includes both the English and Spanish versions of the text.
Acosta, Iván (Santiago de Cuba, Cuba, 1943) Dramaturgo, escritor, director de cine y teatro, hace más de cinco décadas que sus creaciones viven entre dos islas: Manhattan, que lo acogió, y Cuba, de donde escapó en una embarcación en 1961. Pero Cuba jamás se ha escapado de él. En 1972 fundó el Centro Cultural Cubano de Nueva York, donde estrenó en 1977 su célebre pieza teatral El super, que luego se convirtió en la película más significativa hecha por cubanos en el exilio. Ha dirigido los largometrajes Amigos, Rosa y el ajusticiador del canalla, Cómo se forma una rumba y Cándido manos de fuego. Ha escrito más de 15 obras, 9 de ellas publicadas por varias editoriales. Presenta en la Feria su más reciente libro Con una canción cubana en el corazón (Ediciones La palma) y la edición aniversario de los 40 años de El super, la reconocida obra teatral que retrata la vida de los exiliados cubanos en los Estados Unidos.