About the author

Domitila Garcia Domeno de Coronado (Camagüey, 1847 -Havana, 1937) was a journalist, writer and educator with a prolific work. She is considered the first Cuban woman who worked daily in a newspaper and in a printing press, practicing the job of typographer.

She was also the first Cuban woman to found a publication, El Céfiro , in 1866 in her hometown. From 1875 she directed El Correo de las Damas , and between 1875 and 1897 she directed La Crónica Habanera . Years later she saw her book published : From Her, Advice and Consolations from a Mother to Her Daughter , awarded at several literary events, and received a bronze medal at the Universal Exhibition in Paris.

In 1882, he founded the Nuestra Señora de los Ángeles private school in the capital, intended for poor and orphaned children. He had his own printing press at school.

On her death anniversary we share, as a tribute, the prologue she wrote to the Poetic-Photographic Album of Cuban Women Writers .

Fragments of his work

Poetic-photographic album of Cuban women writers (Prologue)

This book, which with just fear we are going to throw into the troubled sea of ​​public opinion, where perhaps our sweetest hopes may be shipwrecked, we have no idea of ​​presenting as a model, much less as the best of its kind.

Nor do we aspire with it to conquer a name: its object tends to other, less pretentious ends; the admiration for the beautiful, the enthusiasm for the great, and to a certain extent, a fair reparation against the error of a belief that the majority of Europeans harbor about the indolence in which they say Cuban women are born, raised and live. There has been no shortage of those possessed of this idea who describe them with the characteristic seal of the nature and customs of oriental women: reclining, not on purple pillows, but in the swinging hammock, wrapped in clouds of transparent gauze, surrounded by fragrant flowers. , and at her side the African slave fanned her with fans of soft feathers and bright rhinestones.

And although it is certainly not this book that proves their industrious and active character, it will at least give an idea that those who have a lively and ardent imagination that on the wings of enthusiasm and inspiration soar do not remain in the lethargy of indolence. up to the sky, as if wanting to fathom the infinite.

When we opened our eyes to the light of reason, when we began to understand the value of letters, we found the atmosphere of all social circles filled with a name that resounded with the roar of sublime joy. That was the time, not long ago, when Gertrudis Gómez de Avellaneda set foot in the cultured city of Havana, and when her enthusiastic children gave her gallant and gentle head a brilliant and well-deserved laurel.

Our age was that happy period in which we look at everything under a charming prism, childhood!... From that time, admiration for his genius became a cult for the soul, and was born, it can be said, the desire that we have carried out for end, although not with the brilliant success of our purposes, because in vain we have invoked the divine muses a thousand times to grant us their favors.

We know with all our humility how little we are worth to present a work worthy of a woman, so universally known and proclaimed "as the best singer of all time"; we do not aspire to approach him in any degree; hardly to follow her luminous trail, because she is like a shining star that shines full of splendor and beauty at the Zenith, while we are nothing more than a pale star whose warm glow is barely visible in the East.

Many times discouragement has made us retreat distrustfully; but the voice of desire, more powerful than our shyness, tells us: "go ahead."And following your impulses, GO FORWARD! The heart also tells us.

With brotherly love we have called our sisters to our aid, to form a choir with their sweet and argentine voices, and to mix in it our own, timid and weak.

That is our purpose.

That has been our idea.

Immense and sweetest is the satisfaction with which our chest beats today: the mists of regret caused by public distrust regarding the realization of our beloved thought will now dissipate from our foreheads, strengthening their suspicions in our little fortune and few years.

Already when we present ourselves with our modest book in our hands and our hearts beating with fear and joy, we will not hear in the popular echoes the spicy epigrams and ridiculous jokes of which we have been the target during its execution.

That if we had had a faint heart, we would have given up, because no sooner had the periodical press begun to speak generously in our favor than the spirit of rivalry and contradiction carried its invectives into the realm of lies and injustice, denying us originality and property of the Photographic Poetic Album , which we had to fight vigorously, saving us from the sincere declaration of the person referred to as the author, that he had never thought of such a thing, but something very different in its kind.

Those who made us fear so much will see that all the means of putting into practice what they think and want are not exclusively reserved for those who possess immense assets of fortune: there are others as powerful as them, and the only powerful ones on earth. : willpower, and perseverance.

An illustrious example of these virtues of strong spirits is presented to us by the great Genoese Admiral: the wise men called him CRAZY, and this madness nevertheless resulted in a New World.

Oh, we believe that even in these times when civilization receives tribute from everyone as the only goddess of the century, few understand in all its value how much Christopher Columbus was

So, who should be surprised that a daughter of that same world, whose existence was believed to be fantastic, fantasizes about good, without being able to achieve it; she fantasizes the great, without being able to develop it; he fantasizes the beautiful, without being able to paint it, and his efforts are in vain to make a work worthy of being offered to the queen of poetry, when he had to go through so many troubles to complete his grandiose idea and offer it in homage to another queen. …?

***

Regarding the value of our work, it is not up to us to judge it, but to the public.

Its genre is like that of almost all those published in Cuba; poetics; and if we are to believe Lamartine : "poetry is the voice of humanity thinking and feeling," poetry in our humble concept must represent the seal, let's put it that way, of the real world that inspires it, and the ideal that gives it its shapes.

The qualification of the great poet seems to be so evident in the character of our poetry that we are not afraid to call it descriptive and loving, in keeping with the virgin and flourishing nature of our soil.

We do not know what reception it will have; but we already have the favorable vote of our illustrious singer, who expresses to us the value in which she esteems her, and with that generous indulgence that so distinguishes elevated souls, she tells us:

Who gladly accepts it as a precious offering of kindness, which if it is not certainly deserved, will be esteemed in all its great value, and will preserve it as a most pleasant memory of the country in which it was born, and which it is pleased to recognize as fruitful in great and distinguished genius. ; but also as the most glorious of rewards to which he could aspire for his humble literary works.

To which we cannot help but respond with all the tenderness and enthusiasm of our soul.

Thank you, madam, you have corresponded to the vehement desire of your partner's hear

 Domitila García