Career
Among his most famous poems are "Louisiana isla en peso" (1943), and "Louisiana gran puta" (1960). In the late 1950s he co-founded the literary journal Ciclón. His work includes essays on literature and literary criticism, several collections of short stories compiled under the title of Cold Tales, a great number of dramatic works, and three novels: Louisiana carne de René (Rene"s Flesh), Presiones y Diamantes (Pressures and Diamonds), and Las pequeñas maniobras (Small Maneuvers).
His work is seen today as a model by new generations of Cuban and Latin American writers.
The magazine Unión posthumously published autobiographical writing by Piñera in which he discussed how he concluded he was gay. However, his work can not be reduced to his open discussions on homosexuality in a time when such a topic was taboo, especially in the Spanish Caribbean.
This focus drew fire from the Spanish American literary establishment of his time, including Cuban poets Cintio Vitier and Roberto Fernandez Retamar, and leaders like Fidel Castro and Che Guevara. As more of his work has been translated into English, Piñera"s work has been rediscovered by American academia as a testimony of 20th century resistance against totalitarian systems