Cuban literature

A recognizably Cuban literature first began to emerge after the end of the 18th century. In the early 19th century several writers gained prominence espousing intellectualism and the concept of freedom. These ideas gained perhaps their greatest intensity in the writings of José Martí,…

… were poets such as the Cuban José María de Heredia, who had begun by mastering Neoclassical poetic forms. Heredia still wrote odes in the Neoclassical manner, but the emotional charge of his poetry, the presentation of a self astonished by the beauty and power of nature, and his espousal of…

…Pablo Neruda; Mexican Octavio Paz; Cubans Nicolás Guillén and José Lezama Lima; Puerto Rican Luis Palés Matos; Argentines Jorge Luis Borges and Oliverio Girondo; and Nicaraguan Ernesto Cardenal. Gabriela Mistral, Pablo Neruda, and Octavio Paz won Nobel Prizes. In the wake of Modernismo and against its by now worn innovations…