Cecilia Valdés
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€36.50
Cecilia Valdés is arguably the most important novel of 19th century Cuba. Written in 1882 by Cirilo Villaverde in exile in New York City, but set in the Havana of the 1830s, the novel recounts a story of the moral, political, and sexual depravity caused by slavery and colonialism. The heroine of the novel, the beautiful light-skinned mulatta named Cecilia, is being pursued by Leonardo, the son of a Spanish slave trader. Unbeknownst to the two, they are the children of the same father. Eventually Cecilia gives in to Leonardo's advances; she becomes pregnant and gives birth to a baby girl. When Leonardo, who is getting bored with his mistress, agrees to marry a white upper class woman, Cecilia vows revenge. A mulatto friend and suitor of hers kills Leonardo, and Cecilia is thrown into prison as an accessory to the crime. Rich in social and historical detail, Cecilia Valdés opens a window into the intricate problems of race relations in the Caribbean, the interactions between sexual, social, and racial oppression, and the lived experience of colonialism.
Cirilo Villaverde was born in Cuba in 1812. In 1848 he was imprisoned for his role in an Anti-colonial conspiracy. In 1849 he escaped and eventually settled in New York City, where he continued his political activism against the Colonial Regime in Cuba. Cecilia Valdés is his best-known work and has been translated into many languages, including Russian and Chinese. Villaverde died in exile in 1894. The late Helen
Lane translated works by Mario Vargas Llosa, Juan Goytisolo, Augusto Roa Bastos, and Octavio Paz, and is the translator of Fray Servando's Memoirs and Marmol's Amalia for the Library of Latin America series. She received the PEN award for her works.
Sibylle Fischer (editor) is Associate Professor of Spanish, Portuguese, and Comparative Literature at New York University. She is the author of Modernity Disavowed: Haiti and the Cultures of Slavery in the Age of Revolution.