Unión de Escritores y Artistas de Cuba (cover artist: Fayad Jamís, design: Héctor Villaverde, layout: Reina Segrera, vignettes: Hilda Vidal, director: Nicolás Guillén), "UNIÓN: De Santiago a la Sierra," mid-1980s.

This issue of UNIÓN features powerful Latin American literary voices, with a particular focus on revolutionary landscapes and the Amazon region. The cover, designed by renowned poet and artist Fayad Jamís, employs bold woodcut-style illustration depicting explosive palm or agave plants rendered in dramatic black ink with energetic diagonal hatching. A striking red horizontal band cuts across the composition, creating visual tension between the organic forms above and text below, evoking both tropical vegetation and revolutionary fervor.

The issue's featured content bridges Cuban revolutionary history with broader Latin American solidarity. "De Santiago a la Sierra" references the legendary guerrilla campaign from Santiago de Cuba to the Sierra Maestra mountains where Castro's revolutionary forces regrouped and built their movement. Brazilian poet Thiago de Mello, writing from the Amazon region of Manaos, contributes "Amazonas, patria del agua" (Amazon, homeland of water), connecting environmental consciousness with revolutionary politics. The issue also examines Colombian poet Porfirio Barba Jacob, exploring "el hombre y la poesía" (the man and his poetry).

Under the directorship of Cuba's National Poet Nicolás Guillén, this issue features contributions from Cuban writers including Justo Esteban Estevanell (whose novel Curujey received mention in UNEAC's 1977 competition), poets Cos Causse, Roberto Díaz Muñoz, Raul Rivero, and many others. International contributors include Marta Morello-Frosch, a professor from the University of California who participated in Cuba's 1984 Forum on Cuban Narrative in Havana, demonstrating ongoing cultural exchange between Cuban and international literary communities.

Fayad Jamís's cover design exemplifies the integration of visual art and literature that characterized UNIÓN magazine, with interior vignettes by Hilda Vidal complementing the literary content. The expressive, gestural quality of the cover illustration captures both the wild energy of the Amazon landscape and the revolutionary spirit connecting Latin American struggles across the continent.