British fantasy literature and the author J.R.R. Tolkien, on the 50th anniversary of his death, will be the focus of British Culture Week in Cuba from 4 to 10 December.

Havana will welcome this eleventh edition, which celebrates the UK’s rich literary heritage and knowledge of its most important works, with a wide-ranging programme of workshops, concerts, film screenings, competitions and theatre performances.

Speaking at a press conference, the British Ambassador to Cuba, Sir George Hollingbery, Knight Commander of the Order of St Michael and St George, KCMG, said he was pleased to know that the work of the British writer, poet, philologist, linguist and university professor Tolkien was well known and admired in Cuba.

Among the proposed programmes, he particularly recommended the concert Tolkien in Havana, inspired by the work of Canadian composer and saxophonist Howard Shore, author of the soundtrack to the Lord of the Rings trilogy, which fuses Cuban genres such as danzón, mambo and chachachá. «I’ve been to two of his rehearsals and I’m very excited,» he added.