Black Tales of Cuba

The first Cuban edition of this book Black Tales of Cuba , by Lydia Cabrera, dates from 1940. These stories were compiled by this anthropologist from the traditional African tales transmitted orally in Cuba. The purpose of Lydia Cabrera is to exalt the Yoruba origins and rescue the cultural tradition of African roots.
Most tales of Yoruba origin are essentially religious tales. It alternates both the fragments of songs and the choirs, the prayers and the folkloric songs, the conversations in muzzle or lucumí language derived from the Yoruba originated in Cuba and used as liturgical language of Santeria.
The Black Tales of Cuba are the first book he published. With this title Lydia found her voice, her identity as an author and began her vast work dedicated to Afro-Cuban culture.
After his first publication in French of the Black Tales of Cuba, Alejo Carpentier wrote:

“A great Cuban book has just been published in Paris. A wonderful book. A book that can be placed in the libraries next to Kipling and Lord Dunsany, near the Journey of Nils Holgerssonby Selma Lagerlöf… And that book has been written by a Cuban woman. Do you perceive all the importance of the event?… The Black Tales of Cuba by Lydia Cabrera constitute a unique work in our literature. They bring a new accent. They are of dazzling originality. They place West Indian mythology in the category of universal values… They conquer a place of exception in Latin American literature. And, as a woman’s work, it creates a precedent… The rare thing is to find in our continent a writer eager to explore our things in depth, avoiding superficial aspects to fix men and myths of our lands with that very fine feminine intelligence … The kind of writer à la Selma Lagerlöf, à la Emily Bronte, is almost unknown in America.”

Lydia Cabrera (1899-1991) was a writer and literary activist, scholar and researcher of Afro-Cuban culture. Consecrated as the pioneer and highest authority on the subject of Santeria and other religions.