Uniting Blacks in a Raceless Nation: Blackness, Afro-Cuban Culture, and Mestizaje in the Prose and Poetry of Nicol疽 Guill駭 (Hardcover) (ISBN-13: 9781611487589)

The Cuban writer Nicol疽 Guill駭 has traditionally been considered a poet of mestizaje, a term that, whilst denoting racial mixture, also refers to a homogenizing nationalist discourse that proclaims the harmonious nature of Cuban identity. Yet, many aspects of Guill駭's work enhance black Cuban and Afro-Cuban identities. Miguel Arnedo-Gez explores this paradox in Guill駭's pre-Cuban Revolution writings placing them alongside contemporaneous intellectual discourses that feigned adherence to the homogenizing ideology whilst upholding black interests. On the basis of links with these and other 1930s Cuban discourses, Arnedo-Gez shows Guill駭's work to contain a message of black unity aimed at the black middle classes. Furthermore, against a tendency to seek a single authorial consciousness--be it mulatto or based on a North American construction of blackness--Guill駭's prose and poetry are also characterized as a struggle for a viable identity in a socio-culturally heterogeneous society.

Author: Miguel Arnedo-Gez
ISBN-10: 1611487587
ISBN-13: 9781611487589
Publisher: Bucknell University Press
Language: English
Published: 05/12/2016
Pages: 274
Format: Hardcover
Weight: 1.20lbs
Size: 9.20h x 6.30w x 1.00d