Cecilia Valdés is arguably the most important novel of 19th century Cuba. Originally published in New York City in 1882, Cirilo Villaverde's novel has fascinated readers inside and outside Cuba since the late 19th century. In this new English translation, a vast landscape emerges of the moral, political, and sexual depravity caused by slavery and colonialism. Set in the Havana of the 1830s, the novel introduces us to Cecilia, a beautiful light-skinned mulatta, who is being pursued by the son of a Spanish slave trader, named Leonardo. 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 gets bored with Cecilia after a while, 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. For the contemporary reader Helen Lane's masterful translation of Cecilia Valdés opens a new window into the intricate problems of race relations in Cuba and the Caribbean. There are the elite social circles of European and New World Whites, the rich culture of the free people of color, the class to which Cecilia herself belonged, and then the slaves, divided among themselves between those who were born in Africa and those who were born in the New World, and those who worked on the sugar plantation and those who worked in the households of the rich people in Havana. Cecilia Valdés thus presents a vast portrait of sexual, social, and racial oppression, and the lived experience of Spanish colonialism in Cuba.

Cecilia Valdés or El Angel Hill (Library of Latin America)

Literature & Fiction

VILLAVERDE, CIRILO

Lane, Helen

World Literature

Oxford University Press

Cecilia Vald�s is arguably the most important novel of 19th century Cuba. Originally published in New York City in 1882, Cirilo Villaverde's novel has fascinated readers inside and outside Cuba since the late 19th century. In this new English translation, a vast landscape emerges of the moral, political, and sexual depravity caused by slavery and colonialism. Set in the Havana of the 1830s, the novel introduces us to Cecilia, a beautiful light-skinned mulatta, who is being pursued by the son of a Spanish slave trader, named Leonardo. 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 gets bored with Cecilia after a while, 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. For the contemporary reader Helen Lane's masterful translation of Cecilia Vald�s opens a new window into the intricate problems of race relations in Cuba and the Caribbean. There are the elite social circles of European and New World Whites, the rich culture of the free people of color, the class to which Cecilia herself belonged, and then the slaves, divided among themselves between those who were born in Africa and those who were born in the New World, and those who worked on the sugar plantation and those who worked in the households of the rich people in Havana. Cecilia Vald�s thus presents a vast portrait of sexual, social, and racial oppression, and the lived experience of Spanish colonialism in Cuba.

United States

Cecilia Valdés o la loma del Ángel es considerada como una de las novelas más representativas de la cubanía tanto por sus temas como por su argumento; asimismo, se puede considerar la primera novela cubana. Su argumento es dramático e inolvidable, lo que ha permitido que la obra sea adaptada tanto al teatro como a la zarzuela y el cine.

Cecilia Valdés o la loma del Ángel (Costumbres Cubanas) (Spanish Edition)

Classics

CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform

Colección Novela. Cecilia Valdés: O la loma del ángel (Spanish Edition)

Independently published

Cecilia Valdes, one of the jewels of nineteenth-century Latin American fiction, displays a thematic complexity that is unique among the novels of its time. Cecilia, the alluring mulata, has come to represent the survival strategies of women of color in a racist society. The novel occupies a prominent place in post-colonial studies about social stratification according to skin color in plantation societies. Villaverde's novel shows the process of modernization that resulted from the boom in the sugar industry, and the transformation of Havana and its social dynamics. The spaces through which the narrator leads us are the same spaces where the story of Cecilia and the history of Havana unfold in parallel lines. A close reading of the novel corroborates the often reiterated perception that Cecilia -alluring, hybrid, complex and tempestuous- is Havana, and is Cuba.

Cecilia Valdes o La Loma del Angel (Spanish Edition)

History & Criticism

Stockcero

Cecilia Valdés o la loma del angel

Genre Fiction

Ediciones Cátedra

Cecilia Valdés (Biblioteca Ayacucho) (Spanish Edition)

Biblioteca Ayacucho

Cirilo Villaverde (1812-1894). Cuba. Estudió en La Habana en el Seminario de San Carlos donde se graduó de Bachiller en Leyes, más tarde practicó la docencia y el periodismo. En La Habana asistió a la Tertulia de Domingo Delmonte y publicó en la Gaceta Cubana su novela La joven de la Flecha de Oro. El 20 de octubre de 1848 fue condenado por una comisión militar, un año después escapó de la prisión y viajó a los Estados Unidos. Poco después fue nombrado redactor en jefe de La Verdad, periódico de Nueva York; aunque en 1858 fue amnistiado y pudo regresar a La Habana. En 1861 regresó a los Estados Unidos y trabajó en el periódico La América, de Nueva York. Terminó de escribir Cecilia Valdés en 1884 y murió el 24 de octubre de 1894 en dicha ciudad.

La peineta calada (Narrativa) (Spanish Edition)

Linkgua ediciones

Cecilia Valdes

Libreria De Porrua Hermanos Y

Cecilia Valdes (Spanish Edition)

Porrúa.

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