Arts and Literature of Cuba

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Fiction C uba has produced many outstanding novelists and short-story writers. This chapter profiles a handful and provides brief excerpts of their work. The writers are known for exploring different genres or for developing dis- tinctive styles. Lydia Cabrera: Elucidating Myths The life’s work of Lydia Cabrera, observed the Cuban scholar Mariela A. Gutiérrez, was to “elucidate the myths of her peo- ple” and chronicle “the spiritual make-up of the Cuban nation.” An ethnologist , Cabrera wrote scholarly works dealing with various aspects of Afro-Cuban religion and culture. But she also wrote finely crafted short stories about the same

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