Cecilia Valdes

Cecilia Valdés, by Cirilo Villaverde, is the most important Cuban novel of the nineteenth century. Its full title is Cecilia Valdés or La Loma del Ángel and was published in New York in 1882. It belongs to the romantic movement, although it is not exempt from realistic and costumbrist brushstrokes. The novel is structured in four parts, covering the historical period between 1812 and 1831.
Villaverde’s purpose, as he himself declares, was to describe in detail the reality of the island, illustrate the sufferings of the slaves and show the different political, social and economic classes and the terrible scourges they suffered.
The plot center of the novel, with folkloric overtones, is the idyll between a mestiza of singular beauty, Cecilia Valdés, with aspirations of ascending socially and frustrated by her social condition, and a young white and rich, Leonardo Gamboa. Around this axis, other stories are developed and diverse episodes are related that give narrative consistency to the whole. The idyll is resolved in a tragic outcome.
Cecilia Valdés is the tragedy of miscegenation, essential in a reflection on the ethnic conflicts of the Cuban nation.
The work of Cirilo Villaverde is framed within romanticism, however it reflects a social and human context that transcends his time and makes him a fundamental author of the nineteenth century. The most important Cuban writers of this era, from Cirilo Villaverde to José Martí, were involved in the pro-independence movements.
In fact, Cecilia Valdés was conceived under the impulse of Cuba’s freedom and abolitionism.

This edition contains the updated notes by Antonio Tudisco and Olga Blondet Tudisco.