{"id":13579,"date":"2025-07-30T14:01:14","date_gmt":"2025-07-30T18:01:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.radioguantanamo.icrt.cu\/english\/?p=13579"},"modified":"2025-07-30T14:01:14","modified_gmt":"2025-07-30T18:01:14","slug":"excilia-saldana-childhood-and-womanhood","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.radioguantanamo.icrt.cu\/english\/excilia-saldana-childhood-and-womanhood\/","title":{"rendered":"Excilia Salda\u00f1a: Childhood and Womanhood"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Guantanamo.- Excilia Salda\u00f1a was a poet, teacher, children\u2019s storyteller, translator, and scholar whose work was profoundly influenced by her explorations of Afro-Cuban womanhood and children\u2019s literature. At the intersection of these themes, enriched by her personal experiences and an intimate voice, she expressed the sensibilities of a generation. Her work reflects elements of Negrismo through a deeply personal lens, redefining the role and significance of Black women of Afro-Cuban heritage in literature, as noted by researcher and writer Emilia Baigorria.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor me, literature is an act of communication, a need to teach and to learn. That\u2019s why much of what I do is dedicated to children. I remember my formative experiences\u2014not just those from my family life, but also what I read as a child. I spent years searching for the author of a quote that deeply moved me. Authors who write for children face both a blessing and a curse: on one hand, they remain in the hearts of children; on the other hand, the children rarely remember their names,\u201d Excilia shared in an interview.<\/p>\n

One of her most enduring and celebrated works is La noche (1989). This piece, woven with memories of her grandmother, reveals an emotional closeness that resonates throughout her writings, where imagery and memory blend in an elegiac dance. In this work, memory serves not only as a trace but also as a necessary anchor. Salda\u00f1a remarked about this piece:<\/p>\n

\u201c(\u2026) It is total poetry based on the heuristic method and Socratic dialogue. It moves from presentation to understanding. Almost everything is conveyed through two elements: rhyme and musicality, which always captivates children, and conceptual depth. I try to create what I call a \u2018circular book\u2019\u2014one that leaves a pleasant impression when read in childhood but reveals entirely new meanings upon revisiting it with more life experience. In that sense, my model might be The Little Prince. At least that was my intention in writing for children, and many people say La noche achieves just that.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the third volume of Historia de la literatura cubana (Editorial Letras Cubanas, 2008), her book is described as a mature and groundbreaking work that marks the literary coming-of-age of a generation, serving as a surprise gift to Cuban literature.<\/p>\n

According to Deicy G. Jim\u00e9nez, a scholar with a Ph.D. in Latin American Literature, Salda\u00f1a\u2019s poetry significantly contributes not only to Negrista poetry but also to the visibility of women in Cuban literary life. The intimacy in her work and her inclusion of themes of race and gender place her within a movement that revives interest in the Black experience in Cuba, uniquely emphasizing women as creative subjects. Jim\u00e9nez notes:<\/p>\n

\u201cAn analysis of the representation of Black and mixed-race women in the early Negrista movement shows how male poets often depicted Afro-descendant women through a sexualized lens. In contrast, the voices of women poets like Salda\u00f1a and Nancy Morej\u00f3n respond with intimate, personal poetry that dismantles the eroticized imagery of their predecessors. Salda\u00f1a\u2019s poetry, positioned within the Negrista aesthetic, opens a new space for defining Afro-Cuban female identity and challenges dominant notions of \u2018race,\u2019 \u2018gender,\u2019 and \u2018nation.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Jim\u00e9nez also highlights how Salda\u00f1a rejects ideas of weakness, subjugation, silence, and a lack of control over one\u2019s destiny or sexuality. Instead, she presents a vision of female leadership, replacing the image of women as male sexual objects. This shift strengthens the literary voice of Black women and opens new pathways for their legacy in national history and cultural imagination. For this reason, Jim\u00e9nez views the study of Salda\u00f1a\u2019s poetry as evidence of a new era in Afro-Cuban women\u2019s literary production:<\/p>\n

\u201cSalda\u00f1a\u2019s poetry focuses on the lived experiences of Afro-Cuban women while emphasizing female generational power. The relationship between grandmother, mother, and daughter forms a timeless unit. The role of women is defined through intergenerational solidarity, transforming the domestic space into a site of resistance. Within the patriarchal order, this female alliance carves out a new identity. Through poetry filled with subjectivity and self-reflection, the poet overturns stereotypical images of Afro-Cuban women.\u201d<\/p>\n

This aspect of her work, evident in collections like Mi nombre: antieleg\u00eda familiar (1991) and poems such as \u201cMon\u00f3logo de la esposa,\u201d reveals an author who delved deeply into her personal world and intimate relationships, highlighting the power of subjectivity to shape and give meaning to even the harshest realities.<\/p>\n

Translated by Luis E. Amador Dominguez<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Guantanamo.- Excilia Salda\u00f1a was a poet, teacher, children\u2019s storyteller, translator, and scholar whose work was profoundly influenced by her explorations of Afro-Cuban womanhood and children\u2019s literature. At the intersection of these themes, enriched by her personal experiences and an intimate voice, she expressed the sensibilities of a generation. Her work reflects elements of Negrismo through […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13580,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13579","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-culture","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.radioguantanamo.icrt.cu\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13579","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.radioguantanamo.icrt.cu\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.radioguantanamo.icrt.cu\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.radioguantanamo.icrt.cu\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.radioguantanamo.icrt.cu\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13579"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.radioguantanamo.icrt.cu\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13579\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13581,"href":"https:\/\/www.radioguantanamo.icrt.cu\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13579\/revisions\/13581"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.radioguantanamo.icrt.cu\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13580"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.radioguantanamo.icrt.cu\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13579"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.radioguantanamo.icrt.cu\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13579"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.radioguantanamo.icrt.cu\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13579"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}