More than 40 images of Cuban poet José Lezama Lima, taken four decades ago by photographer Iván Cañas, will be shown for the first time at Miami Book Fair International this November. The exhibition Lezama inédito pays tribute to the Cuban poet (1910-1976), a bastion of Cuban poetry of all periods and a controversial figure, in spite of himself, in the cultural history of the island.

Lezama inédito opens on November 11 in the Center Gallery at Miami Dade College, which, with the Florida Center for the Literary Arts, is hosting the 27th edition of the Book Fair. The event catalogue will include texts by Cuban exile poet Raul Rivero and novelist Manuel Pereira.

Cañas, then a staff photographer legendary magazine Cuba, visited the poet´s house at Trocadero 162, along with the painter and designer Raul Martínez, on an afternoon in 1969. "It was the first time I saw Lezama,” Cañas told the blog Caféfuerte.com. "That day, I shot two rolls of film.”

Two years later, Cañas returned to Trocadero 162 to photograph Lezama for the magazine Cuba Internacional. Cañas also took several shots of Lezama and his wife, Maria Luisa Bautista, on the Paseo del Prado, then drove them to the Museum of Decorative Arts on 17 Avenue and D, the former home of the Marquise de Revilla de Camargo.

These images were never published. After the "Affaire Padilla” in 1969 and the radical statements at the First National Congress on Education and Culture in 1971, Lezama Lima’s work and his public persona were marginalized by cultural officials. It was the time of the Quinquenio Gris (the Gray Period), characterized by increasingly orthodox versions of the Soviet aesthetic mixed with tropical homophobia. Along with other intellectuals such as Virgilio Pinera, Anton Arrufat, César López, Manuel Díaz Martinez, and Pablo Armando Fernandez, Lezama Lima was turned into a one-man island, and attempts were made to wipe him off the Cuban literary map.

"I saw Lezama just twice in my life, and I am not particularly interested in his work," Cañas admitted candidly to Cafefuerte. "But I think these images are of real value because there are not many pictures of him—he did not like to be photographed.“ Indeed, photographic documentation of Lezama Lima is rare. Beyond the Cañas images, still unknown in Cuba, photos of Lezama Lima include the more familiar images that the photographer "Chinolope" made in the late 1960s of Lezama with the writer Julio Cortázar, at the colonial Plaza de la Catedral and the El Patio restaurant.

After Cañas´s departure to Mexico in the early 1990s, the negatives of his Lezama Lima sessions remained in Cuba under the care of renowned photographer Alberto Figueroa. It was "Figo" who reminded him of this material and sent it to Miami. "This exhibition was possible thanks to my friend Figueroa,” said Cañas, “as he organized the negatives in Cuba and sent them to me.” It was only four months ago that Cañas understood the treasure he had on his hands, "when I realized the centenary of Lezama was approaching." With the help of photographer Alberto Romeu, Cañas undertook the physical and digital restoration of the negatives, which had been badly affected by moisture.

The centenary of Lezama Lima's birth is December 19. In Havana, tributes will include new works by the prima ballerina Alicia Alonso, who is choreographing two pieces inspired his writings—including “Muerte de Narciso” (Death of Narcissus), the poem that first catapulted him into the public eye. But Cañas decided that Florida was the right place for the exhibition. Miami was home to Lezama´s family, and his sister Eloisa Lezama died there last March. “I truly don’t think Cuban deserves these photos, so I decided to show them here,” said Cañas. “They had no right to treat Lezama as they did just due to prejudices and suspicions, when he was not an overt counter-revolutionary.”

Currently a reporter for the Mexican news agency Notimex, Iván Cañas is the author of the books El Cubano se Ofrece (The Cuban Offers Himself, 1982) and Trinidad (1988). The cultural project Photography-Cuba.com will publish an exclusive portfolio of Cañas’s Lezama Lima images.