Last night, I was on the Nuestra Palabra radio show with my good friends Tony, Liana, and Bryan. We talked about being Afro Latina in America and about a recent post I wrote about being such.
It was a great time and I had a great time. Unfortunately, we didn’t get a chance to get into the list of AfroLatino writers. Liana was kind enough to expand on a list I sent her and has allowed me to post it on my blog.
I’ll admit, I’ve only read one person on this list – Evelio Grillo whose book I read at the beginning of my education as a writer many moons ago. I will definitely check out the others on this list.
Enjoy!
Nicolas Guillen – an Afro-Cuban poet, journalist, political activist, and writer. He is best remembered as the national poet of Cuba.
Nancy Morejon – She discusses the mythology of the Cuban nation, and the relation of the blacks of Cuba within that nation. She also voices the situation of women in her within her society, expressing the feminism (as well as the racial integration) of the Cuban revolution by making black women central protagonists in her poems, most notably in the widely anthologized Mujer Negra (Black Woman).
Quince Duncan – He is regarded as Costa Rica’s first Afro-Caribbean writer in the Spanish language. His works typically concern the Afro-caribbean population living on Costa Rica’s Caribbean coast, particularly around the city of Puerto Limón. His novels and short stories have been awarded Costa Rica’s Premio Nacional de Literatura and Premio Editorial Costa Rica. He has also published a novel in English, A Message from
Discipline: Fiction (novels/short stories)
Eulalia Bernard – born in 1935, represents “the historical trajectory of the experience of West Indian blacks in Costa Rica – Poetry
Carlos Guillermo Wilson – Black Cubena’s Thoughts (Coleccion Ebano Y Canela), Panama, Fiction (novelist/short story)
Virginia Brindis de Salas – was a poet of the black community of Uruguay. Her writings made her, along with Pilar Barrios, one of the few published Uruguayan women poets. Poetry
Nelson Estupiñán Bass – the renowned Afro– Ecuadorian writer, winner of national and international honors and awards for his outstanding and voluminous interpretations of African culture in the American diaspora and nominee for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1998, died in Hershey, Pennsylvania, on March 1, 2002. In response to an invitation by Penn State University, Capital College in Middletown, Nelson and his wife, the novelist Argentina Chiriboga, traveled to that campus to give a series of lectures on Afro– Ecuadorian culture and to interact with the Hispanic community of the region. Poetry, essay
Evelio Grillo – Evelio Grillo, author of BLACK CUBAN, BLACK AMERICAN (Arte Público Press, 2000) – Memoir
Piri Thomas – Born Juan Pedro Tomás, of Puerto Rican and Cuban parents in New York City’s Spanish Harlem in 1928, Piri Thomas began his struggle for survival, identity, and recognition at an early age. The vicious street environment of poverty, racism, and street crime took its toll and he served seven years of nightmarish incarceration at hard labor. But, with the knowledge that he had not been born a criminal, he rose above his violent background of drugs and gang warfare, and he vowed to use his street and prison know-how to reach hard core youth and turn them away from a life of crime. Cuba and US by way of Puerto Rico. Memoir
Arturo Alfonso Schomburg (1874 – 1938) Puerto Rican historian, writer, and activist in the United States who researched and raised awareness of the great contributions that Afro-Latin Americans and Afro-Americans have made to society. US (Puerto Rico). Historian and general badassness with a pen.
Icess Fernandez Rojas 