By Adriana Mendez Rodenas

Writer of novels, memoirs, and commute writings, Maria de las Mercedes Santa Cruz y Montalvo, greater referred to as l. a. Condesa de Merlin (1789-1852), is arguably one in all Cuba's most attractive authors; but beforehand her works have long gone principally neglected. Born in colonial Havana to an aristocratic Creole kinfolk, the long run countess of Merlin left Cuba for Spain at an early age. Later, her marriage to the French count number Antoine Christophe Merlin and the invasion of French Napoleonic troops brought about one other flow to France, the place she grew to become one of many belle dames of Paris and commenced her literary occupation. She back just once to Cuba after the loss of life of her husband in 1840, a trip that produced Viaje a l. a. Habana. Upon her go back to Paris, Merlin elevated this into l. a. Havane, an formidable three-volume account of the political, social, and fiscal association of the island. From the perspective of feminist and psychoanalytical concept, Gender and Nationalism in Colonial Cuba brilliantly explores the various ways that problems with gender have contributed to Merlin's digital absence from the canons of literature and from the discourses on Cuban nationwide identification. Merlin's double id as either Cuban and French is symbolic of the Cuban exiled situation, a truth taken up through modern exiled Cuban writers who see the countess as an alter-ego.Mendez Rodenas seeks to revive Merlin because the first lady author in Cuban literary background to articulate a feeling of nationwide id, in addition to being Cuba's first girl historian. She makes a speciality of Merlin's commute writings simply because they learn such matters as slavery, independence, nationhood, the function of ladies, schooling, and native literature. jointly her writings build an alternate, gendered historical past of nineteenth-century Cuba that has to be said as either useful and authentic.By situating Merlin on the intersection of the discourses of gender and nationalism, Mendez Rodenas unearths not just her pioneering function but in addition the necessity to extend present severe different types to account for the specificity of the Latin American literary culture. within the strategy of restoring Merlin to her applicable position within the canon of Latin American literature, she broadens our realizing of colonial Cuban historical past and expands our wisdom of the ways that commute writing can effect a country's nationwide literature .

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Additional resources for Gender and Nationalism in Colonial Cuba: The Travels of Santa Cruz y Montalvo, Condesa de Merlin

Sample text

2. Havana (Cuba)Description and travel. 3. CubaDescription and travel. 4. CubaHistory18101899. 5. Feminist criticism. I. Title. 91'05dc2197-21193 CIP Manufactured in the United States of America Para Juliana Contents List of Illustrations viii Preface ix I. From the Margins of History Gender and Nationalism in Spanish American Literature 3 II. The Return of the Prodigal Daughter The New World Discovery of La Condesa de Merlin 19 III. The View from the Harbor Gender Subversion in the Literature of the Second Discovery 43 IV.

36 Though La Havane (1844) would not be the financial success Merlin hoped for, this was due perhaps to her association with the French philosophe Philarète Chasles, the man who dominated her emotional life during the vulnerable period when she found herself aging and alone, and lacking financial security. Though Merlin considered him an intellectual peer and a partner in the ambitious enterprise of publishing what she thoughtto be her major work, Chasles proved himself to be not only a treacherous lover but also a ruthless exploiter of her limited resources.

I am most grateful to Enrico Mario Santí, who was instrumental in bringing the book to publication, and to my readersAntonio Benítez Rojo and Roberto Ignacio Díazfor their insightful comments and suggestions. Finally, I wish to thank the director and staff of Vanderbilt University Press for their enthusiastic support, including Bard Young, the editor, for the care given the final edition, especially his attention to the book's multilingual format and to the original spellings and punctuation of my sources, and Polly Law, the Page XII marketing manager, for her untiring effort to place this book before the interested public.

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