User:Timathom/Lydia Cabrera

Lydia Cabrera ...

Biography
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

 * Anagó : vocabulario lucumí (el yoruba que se habla en Cuba)., ISBN 0897293959
 * Anagó : vocabulario lucumí (el yoruba que se habla en Cuba)., ISBN 0897293959
 * Ayapá : cuentos de Jicotea., ISBN 0897290100
 * Ayapá : cuentos de Jicotea., ISBN 0897290100
 * Consejos, pensamientos y notas de Lydia E. Pinbán.
 * Consejos, pensamientos y notas de Lydia E. Pinbán.
 * Cuentos negros de Cuba., ISBN 0803215339
 * Cuentos negros de Cuba., ISBN 0803215339
 * Cuentos para adultos niños y retrasados mentales.
 * Cuentos para adultos niños y retrasados mentales.
 * 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., 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., 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)., 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)., ISBN 0897290097
 * Francisco y Francisca : chascarrillos de negros viejos.
 * Francisco y Francisca : chascarrillos de negros viejos.
 * Havana, Cuba, ca. 1957 rhythms and songs for the orishas.
 * Havana, Cuba, ca. 1957 rhythms and songs for the orishas.
 * La Regla Kimbisa del Santo Cristo del Buen Viaje., ISBN 0897293967
 * La Regla Kimbisa del Santo Cristo del Buen Viaje., ISBN 0897293967
 * La medicina popular de Cuba : médicos de antaño, curanderos, santeros y paleros de hogaño.
 * La medicina popular de Cuba : médicos de antaño, curanderos, santeros y paleros de hogaño.
 * La sociedad secreta Abakuá.
 * La sociedad secreta Abakuá.
 * La sociedad secreta Abakuá : narrada por viejos adeptos.
 * La sociedad secreta Abakuá : narrada por viejos adeptos.
 * Los animales en el folklore y la magia de Cuba., ISBN 0897294343
 * Los animales en el folklore y la magia de Cuba., ISBN 0897294343
 * Lydia Cabrera : vida hecha arte.
 * Lydia Cabrera : vida hecha arte.
 * Matanzas, Cuba, ca. 1957 Afro-Cuban sacred music from the countryside.
 * Matanzas, Cuba, ca. 1957 Afro-Cuban sacred music from the countryside.
 * Otán iyebiyé: las piedras preciosas.
 * Otán iyebiyé: las piedras preciosas.
 * Other fires : short fiction by Latin American women.
 * Other fires : short fiction by Latin American women.
 * Refranes de negros viejos.
 * Refranes de negros viejos.
 * Supersticiones y buenos consejos.
 * Supersticiones y buenos consejos.
 * Yemayá y Ochún.
 * Yemayá y Ochún.

Notes and references
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].