User:Timathom/Lydia Cabrera

Lydia Cabrera
Lydia Cabrera
Born	1899
Died	1992

Lydia Cabrera ...

Biography[edit]

Lydia Cabrera was born in Havana, Cuba on May 20, 1899. Her father, Raimundo Cabrera, was a lawyer. He was a member of the pro-independence intellectuals known as the “generation of 1868” and founder of the literary and political magazine Cuba y America. Lydia, an avid reader, was taught at home. She was strongly influenced by her father’s nationalist feelings and cultural background, her sister Emma’s love of art, and her nannies’ African and Afro Cuban stories, language and traditions.

Lydia completed her secondary school without ever attending classes and started auditing college courses. Although she published her first articles in the Diario de la Marina at age eighteen, her first love was painting, and she attended the San Alejandro Academy of Arts for a brief period.

During short trips to her native country while living in Paris, Cabrera began to make preliminary contacts with the future informants of her ethnology research. Back in Paris, she wrote her first Cuentos Negros. The stories were read at literary gatherings and later published in several reviews such as Cahiers du Sud, Revue de Paris, and Les NouvellesLittéraires. A French translation by literary critic Francis de Miomandre was published by Gallimard in 1936 as a collection entitled Contes Nègres de Cuba.

Cabrera returned to Cuba in 1938 with the purpose of doing research on the subject of folklore, conscious of the need to preserve this vital element of Cuban culture for posterity. The first Spanish edition of Cuentos negros de Cuba was published in1940 in Havana; a second work of fiction, ¿Por Qué? Cuentos Negros de Cuba, Colección del Chicherekú, was published in 1948.

Cabrera distinguished her work by writing with a new voice and style and positioned herself at the forefront by conducting field research, which required her to spend years gaining the trust of her informants. She traveled within the island conducting interviews, collecting oral histories, recording stories and music, documenting rituals and practices, and cataloging “Africanisms” of Cuban Spanish. The result was El Monte (The Forest or The Wilderness), published in 1954, a formative work on Afro Cuban religions and liturgy.

Cabrera left Cuba as an exile in 1960 and she did not produce any writing for ten years. In 1970, Cabrera published Otán Iyebiyé, Las Piedras Preciosas and in 1971 the third volume of “cuentos negros” Ayapá: Cuentos de Jicotea, followed by other publications. She published one of her most well known works, Anaforuana, about the secret Abakuá society, in 1975. Her writings in exile are considered by some critics to be among her best because of the intellectual and emotional maturity she had achieved. She had become internationally recognized and honored for her contributions to literature, ethnology and anthropology.

She died in Miami on September 19th, 1991. During her long and prolific career Cabrera produced what is considered the most complete and important body of research on Afro Caribbean religions and folklore. She was one of the first to recognize the richness of African culture and its vital contributions to Cuban identity. Her work remains a leading authority of Afro Cuban culture.

Works or publications[edit]

Anagó : vocabulario lucumí (el yoruba que se habla en Cuba). OCLC 000833329, ISBN 0897293959
Anagó : vocabulario lucumí (el yoruba que se habla en Cuba). OCLC 000833329, ISBN 0897293959
Ayapá : cuentos de Jicotea. OCLC 000676675, ISBN 0897290100
Ayapá : cuentos de Jicotea. OCLC 000676675, ISBN 0897290100
Consejos, pensamientos y notas de Lydia E. Pinbán. OCLC 028479976
Consejos, pensamientos y notas de Lydia E. Pinbán. OCLC 028479976
Cuentos negros de Cuba. OCLC 054988800, ISBN 0803215339
Cuentos negros de Cuba. OCLC 054988800, ISBN 0803215339
Cuentos para adultos niños y retrasados mentales. OCLC 009775722
Cuentos para adultos niños y retrasados mentales. OCLC 009775722
El monte : igbo, finda, ewe orisha, vititi nfinda : notas sobre las religiones, la magia, las supersticiones y el folklore de los negros criollos y el pueblo de Cuba. OCLC 001973886, ISBN 0897290097
El monte : igbo, finda, ewe orisha, vititi nfinda : notas sobre las religiones, la magia, las supersticiones y el folklore de los negros criollos y el pueblo de Cuba. OCLC 001973886, ISBN 0897290097
El monte, igbo, finda, ewe orisha, vititi nfinda. (Notas sobre las religiones, la magia, las supersticiones y el folklore de los negros criollos y del pueblo de Cuba). OCLC 000327380, ISBN 0897290097
El monte, igbo, finda, ewe orisha, vititi nfinda. (Notas sobre las religiones, la magia, las supersticiones y el folklore de los negros criollos y del pueblo de Cuba). OCLC 000327380, ISBN 0897290097
Francisco y Francisca : chascarrillos de negros viejos. OCLC 003130548
Francisco y Francisca : chascarrillos de negros viejos. OCLC 003130548
Havana, Cuba, ca. 1957 rhythms and songs for the orishas. OCLC 048566249
Havana, Cuba, ca. 1957 rhythms and songs for the orishas. OCLC 048566249
La Regla Kimbisa del Santo Cristo del Buen Viaje. OCLC 015119327, ISBN 0897293967
La Regla Kimbisa del Santo Cristo del Buen Viaje. OCLC 015119327, ISBN 0897293967
La medicina popular de Cuba : médicos de antaño, curanderos, santeros y paleros de hogaño. OCLC 011145434
La medicina popular de Cuba : médicos de antaño, curanderos, santeros y paleros de hogaño. OCLC 011145434
La sociedad secreta Abakuá. OCLC 000371862
La sociedad secreta Abakuá. OCLC 000371862
La sociedad secreta Abakuá : narrada por viejos adeptos. OCLC 001544415
La sociedad secreta Abakuá : narrada por viejos adeptos. OCLC 001544415
Los animales en el folklore y la magia de Cuba. OCLC 018591768, ISBN 0897294343
Los animales en el folklore y la magia de Cuba. OCLC 018591768, ISBN 0897294343
Lydia Cabrera : vida hecha arte. OCLC 042863230
Lydia Cabrera : vida hecha arte. OCLC 042863230
Matanzas, Cuba, ca. 1957 Afro-Cuban sacred music from the countryside. OCLC 048846771
Matanzas, Cuba, ca. 1957 Afro-Cuban sacred music from the countryside. OCLC 048846771
Otán iyebiyé: las piedras preciosas. OCLC 000338426
Otán iyebiyé: las piedras preciosas. OCLC 000338426
Other fires : short fiction by Latin American women. OCLC 012313251
Other fires : short fiction by Latin American women. OCLC 012313251
Refranes de negros viejos. OCLC 000373781
Refranes de negros viejos. OCLC 000373781
Supersticiones y buenos consejos. OCLC 017630921
Supersticiones y buenos consejos. OCLC 017630921
Yemayá y Ochún. OCLC 006368199
Yemayá y Ochún. OCLC 006368199

Notes and references[edit]

Final version by Marta Martínez, María Jiménez, and Rahid Chadid; edited by Natalie Baur, 2012.. "Guide to the Lydia Cabrera Papers," Miami, FL: University of Miami Libraries, [YYYY].

External links[edit]

Library and archival resources by or about Lydia Cabrera.

This Cuban biographical article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.

Authority control databases
International	FAST ISNI VIAF
National	Norway Spain France BnF data Catalonia Germany Israel United States 2 Sweden Czech Republic Australia Netherlands Poland
Academics	CiNii
People	Deutsche Biographie
Other	SNAC IdRef

User:Timathom/Lydia Cabrera

Biography[edit]

Works or publications[edit]

See also[edit]

Notes and references[edit]

Further reading[edit]

External links[edit]