Guarding cultural memory : Afro-Cuban women in literature and the arts / Flora González Mandri.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

González Mandri, Flora María.

Series:

New World studies

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Cuban literature--Women authors--History and criticism.

Cuban literature.

Cuban literature--Black authors--History and criticism.

Cuban literature--20th century--History and criticism.

Arts, Black--Cuba--20th century.

Arts, Black.

Women artists--Cuba--History--20th century.

Women artists.

History.

Cuban literature--Black authors.

Cuban literature--Women authors.

Cuba.

Physical Description:

xii, 232 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm.

Place of Publication:

Charlottesville : University of Virginia Press, 2006.

Summary:

In Guarding Cultural Memory, Flora Gonzalez Mandri examines the vibrant and uniquely illuminating post-Revolutionary creative endeavors of Afro-Cuban women. Taking on the question of how African diaspora cultures practice remembrance, she reveals the ways in which these artists restage the confrontations between modernity and tradition.

Gonzalez Mandri considers the work of the poet and cultural critic Nancy Morejon, the poet Excilia Saldana, the filmmaker Gloria Rolando, and the artists Maria Magdalena Campos-Pons and Belkis Ayon. Placing these artists and writers in their historical context, Gonzalez Mandri shows how their accomplishments were consistently silenced in official Cuban history and culture and explores the strategies through which culturally censored memories survived-and continue to survive-in a Caribbean country purported to have integrated its Hispanic and African peoples and heritages into a Cuban identity. The picture that finally emerges is one not only of exceptional artistic achievement but also of successful redefinitions of concepts of race, gender, and nation in the face of almost insurmountable cultural odds.

Contents:

1 Constructions of the Cuban Mulatta: Cecilia Valdes and Maria Antonia 13

2 El Monte: A Matrix for Cultural Encounters 39

3 Cuban National Identity in Morejon, Rolando, and Ayon 65

4 The Autobiographical Poetry of Excilia Saldana 113

5 Possession and Altar-Making: Maria Magdalena Campos-Pons 155.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [205]-219) and index.

ISBN:

0813925258

0813925266

OCLC:

61864060