Humberto López y Guerra

Humberto López y Guerra (H.L. Guerra)
Born Humberto López y Guerra (H.L. Guerra)
(1945-08-12) 12 August 1945
Matanzas, Cuba
Occupation screenwriter, film director, journalist and novelist
Nationality Swedish
Period 1960s–present
Notable awards Journalist Awards 1973 (Radio Sweden), "Arrabal" Prix Italia 1981, "The Evil Years" Nordvision Awards 1989
Website
hlguerra.com

Humberto Lopez y Guerra (H.L. Guerra) (born 1945) is a Swedish novelist and director born in Cuba. He began his film career 1960 producing and directing a series of documentary films for the Cuban Institute of Art and Cinema, ICAIC. In 1963 he was given through election a scholarship to study film directing at the Cinema Superior School at Babelsberg Berlin,[1] Germany. After graduating from Babelsberg's he returned to Cuba where he directed his film "Juventud 67" (Youth, 67). However, he went back to Europe in 1968 and he moved to Sweden.

In 1976 he directed his film "Federico Garcia Lorca: Death in Granada"[2] produced by the Swedish Television. In October 1980 the New York Times described the transmission of the film by Spanish Television in June that same year as attracting "one of the largest audiences in the history of Spanish Television.[3] In 1978 he directed two documentaries titled "Spain two years after Franco", produced for Swedish Television.[4] In 1979 he directed "Arrabal",[5] a documentary about the Spanish writer Fernando Arrabal. Prix Italia nominated 1981 Prix Italia. In 1980 he directed for Swedish Television his film "Det Langa Straffet" (The Sentence),[6] about Huber Matos. The Sentence represented Sweden in Emmy Awards in New York in 1981.[7] In 1987 he wrote and directed "Ondskans år"[8] a TV film in three parts about Nazism in Sweden during the second world war. The film was very successful in Sweden. In 1989 received Nordvision award for best television series of the Nordic countries.[9] In 1989 he wrote and directed "Castro's Cuba",[10] TV series in three parts, which was exhibited in the United States, Latin America and Australia.[11] The most complete TV series on Cuba that was done in those years.[12]

In 2012, he published his first novel "El traidor de Praga" (The traitor from Prague) presented this year in cities like Madrid, Stockholm, New York and as well in the Miami International Book Fair (Nov. 2012). The Miami Herald calls the novel a milestone in the genre of espionage in the Spanish language literature.

In 2016, he published his novel "Triángulo de espías" (Spy triangel)Invited to the Miami International Book Fair 2016.


Filmography

Novels

El Traidor de Praga (The Traitor from Prague)

In 2012 he published "The Traitor of Prague", ISBN 978-84-7962-738-6 a spy novel, Editorial Verbum SL, Madrid.

El Nuevo Herald (Miami) writes in the review signed by Manuel C. Diaz: «After the publication of this excellent novel, one cannot say that the genre of spy novels has no literary tradition in Spanish, it has just been born, and it is of Cuban origin».[21]

Synopsis: A thrilling novel that links Prague to Washington, South Yemen, Paris, Sitges, Madrid, Havana, Berlin, Geneva and Panama.

A plot in which fiction and historic facts mixed with real and fictional characters.

A story that reveals the secrets of international espionage and we'll never know for sure if it really happened, but all can be... In November 1989, major Paredes, second man of Cuban intelligence in Prague, decides passing top-secret information to CIA, amid the debacle of communist regimes of Eastern Europe. In Washington, this betrayal actitude causes doubt and skepticism, although Javier Puig, the Cuban-American spy that liaised with his old friend Paredes, is trying to convince Langley that it is not a Cuban provocation or infiltration, but the honest decision of a brave man, that is putting his own life at stake, about helping the Fidel Castro regime's fall. But Puig's own credibility is also questioned by hawks of the Central Intelligence Agency.

Lil, a radical German young student, Jewish descent, converted spy by the Cuban intelligence service, is the trigger that achieves that Americans finally accept as true the information in which Paredes is warning of a terrible terrorist attack: Cuba and agents of the European dying socialist field, grouped in an ultra secret organization, Solidarity International Command (SIC), are about to perpetrate.


Triángulo de espías (Spy triangel)

In 2016 he published his new novel "Triángulo de espías” (Spy triangle), the continuation of "El traidor de Praga" (The traitor from Prag) presented this year at the Miami International Book Fair. ISBN 978-84-9074-411-6, Editorial Verbum, Madrid.

Synopsis: The mysterious murder of a young Russian woman in Stockholm spikes an operational alert at Säpo (Sweden’s,,Security/Counterintelligence/Counterterro-rism police). However, the first step from Säpo is an attempt to lay a smoke screen around the crime. Stig Bohman, a Counterintelligence Officer at Säpo, is responsible for obstructing the police work initiated by Police Commissioner Gunnar Jansson and his assistant Anna Palmqvist. What could be the reason behind Säpo’s obstructionist effort? While the Swedish media is referring to the murdered girl as “merely an Eastern European prostitute,” it turns out that, in reality, she is the daughter of Alvaro Espinosa, a Colonel with the Cuban Intelligence, who is willing to defect in Europe and sell highly classified information regarding the Cuban regime, in exchange for political asylum.

The Miami Herald (Review) Spy Triangle is a great espionage novel. I cannot find a better way to describe it. It is written meticulously, as an artisan, and in its plot, despite tackling complex issues like the illegal sale of weapons to terrorist countries, there are no loose ends. In the end, thanks to an unexpected plot twist, all pieces fall into place, and all in the context of a plot involving the intelligence services of Cuba, North Korea and the United States. With this novel, H.L Guerra has once again demonstrated, as he did in The Traitor from Prague, that spies do not have to emerge from the cold. They can come from the heat of the tropics.

Screenplays


Awards and selections

References

  1. ↑ "Deutschen Hochschule für Filmkunst – historik". Hff-potsdam.de. 1 September 2003. Retrieved 7 December 2011.
  2. 1 2 "Federico García Lorca: Murder in Granada" på IMDb.
  3. ↑ New York Times 19 oktober 1980
  4. ↑ "Sveriges Television". Svt.se. 9 April 2003. Retrieved 7 December 2011.
  5. 1 2 "Arrabal"
  6. ↑ The Sentence /Det långa straffet
  7. ↑ "Emmy Awards". Emmys.tv. Retrieved 7 December 2011.
  8. ↑ "Ondskans år". Archived from the original on 13 June 2011. Retrieved 7 December 2011.
  9. 1 2 "Nordvision". Nordvision. 17 November 2011. Retrieved 7 December 2011.
  10. 1 2 "The Evil Years". Sfi.se. Archived from the original on 8 August 2011. Retrieved 7 December 2011.
  11. ↑ release info Casto's Cuba
  12. ↑ ”La Cuba de Castro””Castro's Cuba”
  13. ↑ "Carlos". Server8.bibl.hff-potsdam.de:80. 30 October 1998. Retrieved 7 December 2011.
  14. ↑ "Choose your Hero-British Film Institute". Ftvdb.bfi.org.uk. 16 April 2009. Retrieved 7 December 2011.
  15. ↑ "The Lorca Murder Case". Nybooks.com. 24 November 1977. Retrieved 7 December 2011.
  16. ↑ NYT, 19 Oct. 1980
  17. ↑ "Prix Italia and the Turin Film Festival present Spanish Film Director Arrabal".
  18. ↑ The Sentence
  19. ↑ "Daghemmet Lyckan". Sfi.se. Archived from the original on 18 September 2012. Retrieved 7 December 2011.
  20. ↑ "Castro's Cuba"
  21. ↑ El Nuevo Herald (Miami)
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