Selected Writings

by Marti, Jose; Allen, Esther; Echevarria, Roberto Gonzalez

• ISBN13: 9780142437049
• ISBN10: 0142437042
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2002-04-30
• Publisher: Penguin Classics

Summary

José Martiacute (1853-1895) is the most renowned political and literary figure in the history of Cuba. A poet, essayist, orator, statesman, abolitionist, and the martyred revolutionary leader of Cuba's fight for independence from Spain, Martí lived in exile in New York for most of his adult life, earning his living as a foreign correspondent. Throughout the 1880s and early 1890s, Martí's were the eyes through which much of Latin America saw the United States. His impassioned, kaleidoscopic evocations of that period in U.S. history, the assassination of James Garfield, the opening of the Brooklyn Bridge, the execution of the Chicago anarchists, the lynching of the Italians in New Orleans, and much more, bring it rushing back to life. Organized chronologically, this collection begins with his early writings, including a thundering account of his political imprisonment in Cuba at age sixteen. The middle section focuses on his journalism, which offers an image of the United States in the nineteenth century, its way of life and system of government, that rivals anything written by de Tocqueville, Dickens, Trollope, or any other European commentator. Including generous selections of his poetry and private notebooks, the book concludes with his astonishing, hallucinatory final masterpiece, "War Diaries", never before translated into English.

Table of Contents

Jose Marti: An Introduction	ix
Roberto Gonzalez Echevarria
Chronology	xxvii
Suggestions for Further Reading	xxxiii
EARLIEST WRITINGS	1	(414)
Abdala	3	(4)
Letter to His Mother from Prison	7	(2)
Political Prison in Cuba	9	(10)
1871-1881	19	(22)
Notebooks 1-3	21	(5)
Early Journalism	26	(15)
The Poor Neighborhoods of Mexico City	26	(2)
Sarah Bernhardt	28	(4)
Impressions of America (by a very fresh Spaniard)	32	(9)
1882-1890	41	(228)
Poetry	43	(29)
Prologue to Juan Antonio Perez Bonalde's Poem of Niagara	43	(9)
Ismaelillo	52	(1)
Waking Dream / Sueno despierto	52	(1)
Fragrant Arms / Brazos fragantes	53	(1)
My Kinglet / Mi reyecillo	53	(1)
Son of My Soul / Hijo del alma	54	(2)
Free Verses / Versos libres	56	(1)
My Verses	57	(1)
The Swiss Father / El padre suizo	58	(2)
Famous Island / Isla famosa	60	(2)
Love in the City / Amor de ciudad grande	62	(4)
I Hate the Sea / Odio el mar	66	(2)
Winged Cup / Copa con alas	68	(4)
Notebooks 4-15	72	(10)
Undated Fragment	78	(1)
A Passion	79	(3)
from The Golden Age	82	(7)
Pin the Tail on the Donkey: A New Game and Some Old Ones	83	(6)
Letters from New York	89	(166)
Coney Island	89	(5)
The Trial of Guiteau	94	(13)
Prizefight	107	(9)
Emerson	116	(14)
Tributes to Karl Marx, Who Has Died	130	(10)
from La America	140	(1)
The Brooklyn Bridge	140	(5)
The Glossograph	145	(1)
Indigenous Art	146	(3)
Mexico, the United States, and Protectionism	149	(3)
Graduation Day	152	(5)
The Indians in the United States	157	(7)
The World's Biggest Explosion	164	(3)
Impressionist Painters	167	(4)
A Great Confederate Celebration	171	(5)
The Cutting Case	176	(7)
The Poet Walt Whitman	183	(12)
Class War in Chicago: A Terrible Drama	195	(24)
A Walking Marathon	219	(6)
New York Under Snow	225	(6)
Blaine's Night	231	(6)
A Chinese Funeral	237	(7)
Inauguration Day	244	(11)
Political Correspondence	255	(14)
Letter to Emilio Nunez	255	(2)
Letter to General Maximo Gomez	257	(4)
A Vindication of Cuba	261	(8)
1891-1894	269	(66)
Poetry	270	(16)
Simple Verses / Versos sencillos	270	(1)
Prologue	270	(2)
(I am an honest man / Yo soy un hombre sincero)	272	(4)
(I hate the masks and vices / Odio la mascara y vicio)	276	(2)
(Past the manor with the tomb / Por la tumba del cortijo)	278	(2)
(Blood-hued lightning cleaves / El rayo surca, sangriento)	280	(2)
(Yes, I know: flesh / Ya se: de carne se puede)	282	(1)
(I dream of marble cloisters / Sueno con claustros de marmol)	282	(4)
Notebooks 18-20	286	(2)
Letters from New York	288	(26)
Our America	288	(8)
The Lynching of the Italians	296	(8)
The Monetary Conference of the American Republics	304	(6)
A Town Sets a Black Man on Fire	310	(4)
from Patria	314	(21)
The Abolition of Slavery in Puerto Rico	314	(4)
My Race a	318	(3)
To Cuba!	321	(8)
The Truth About the United States	329	(6)
1895	335	(80)
Politics	337	(9)
The Montecristi Manifesto	337	(9)
Final Correspondence	346	(4)
Letter to His Mother	346	(1)
Letter to Manuel Mercado	346	(4)
War Diaries	350	(65)
From Montecristi to Cap-Haitien	350	(30)
From Cap-Haitien to Dos Rios	380	(35)
Afterword by Esther Allen	415	(4)
Notes	419	(30)
Index	449