Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of illustrations and maps
- Note on language and translations
- Introduction
- 1 James J. O'Kelly at Jiguaní (1873)
- 2 José Martí at Vega del Jobo (1895)
- 3 Richard Harding Davis in Santiago de Cuba (1897)
- 4 Edward Stratemeyer at Siboney (1898)
- 5 Andrew Summers Rowan in Bayamo (1898)
- 6 Josephine Herbst in Realengo 18 (1935)
- 7 Antonio Núñez Jiménez on Pico Turquino (1945)
- 8 ‘Less than human’: Guantánamo Bay (2002)
- Envoi
- Glossary
- Acknowledgements
- Bibliography
- Index
Envoi
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of illustrations and maps
- Note on language and translations
- Introduction
- 1 James J. O'Kelly at Jiguaní (1873)
- 2 José Martí at Vega del Jobo (1895)
- 3 Richard Harding Davis in Santiago de Cuba (1897)
- 4 Edward Stratemeyer at Siboney (1898)
- 5 Andrew Summers Rowan in Bayamo (1898)
- 6 Josephine Herbst in Realengo 18 (1935)
- 7 Antonio Núñez Jiménez on Pico Turquino (1945)
- 8 ‘Less than human’: Guantánamo Bay (2002)
- Envoi
- Glossary
- Acknowledgements
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
Regino E. Boti (1878–1958) lived a relatively quiet life in Guantánamo—quiet at least by the standards of most of the people who have danced across the pages of this book. His family was fairly prosperous; he worked as a public notary; he took part in local politics; he had a long and happy marriage; and he produced one of most distinguished bodies of poetry to have emerged from Oriente.
I wanted to end here, with a poem like this, in order to take away the bad taste let by the last chapter and to return Guantánamo to Cuba, to the lyric purity of one of its finest voices. ‘Sortilegio’ seems also to offer as good an image as any of the author at book's end—sad and disorientated waverer dreaming a new day in the eternal night.
Ya se acerca la sombra alucinante
tras de la que se quiebra el mudo lema,
sin que a su tenebrez huya un instante
ni inquiera altivo ni malvado tema.
Desciende sin egeria el caminante
que la duda adoptó como sistema;
triste y desorientado claudicante,
fue su andar una oscura estratagema.
Ve del pasado el turbulento abismo
en tanto que caduca ante sus ojos
del mundo la ilusión que lo engreía.
Mente y sensorio en funeral quietismo,
va con desnudos pies hallando abrojos,
sueña en la noche eterna un nuevo día.
[Now the beguiling shadow draws near
behind it, the voiceless legend folds,
without an instant fleeing its gloom
not even arrogance questions this evil motif.
The traveller descends without a guide
he who adopted doubt as a system;
sad and disorientated waverer,
his gait was an obscure stratagem.
He sees the turbulent abyss from the past
while the illusion that made the world conceited
disappears before his eyes.
Mind and senses in funereal stillness
go with bare feet finding thistles,
dreaming a new day in the eternal night.]
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Cuba's Wild EastA Literary Geography of Oriente, pp. 398 - 399Publisher: Liverpool University PressPrint publication year: 2011