Lydia Cabrera

Infobox Scientist
name = Lydia Cabrera
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caption = Lydia Cabrera
birth_date = May 20, 1899
birth_place = Havana
death_date = September 19, 1991
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nationality = Cuba
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field = anthropologist
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Lydia Cabrera (Havana, May 20, 1899 - September 19, 1991) was a Cuban anthropologist and poet.

Cabrera was born in Havana; she took an interest in Afro-Cuban culture after being introduced to the subject by her father, Raimundo Cabrera, and her sister Emma. She couldn't go to school and high-school due to a disease and several teachers educated her at home. She moved to France in 1927, hoping to become an artist, and graduated from the École du Louvre in 1930. In 1938 she returned to Cuba, where she remained until she left in 1960 as an exile following the Cuban revolution led by Fidel Castro. She moved to Miami, Florida, where she remained until the rest of her life.

She was an authority on Santería and other Afro-Cuban religions. Over her lifetime she published over one hundred books; little if any of her work is available in English. Her most important book is "El Monte", (Spanish: "The Wilderness") which was the first major anthropological study of Afro-Cuban traditions. Upon her death, she donated her research collection to the library of the University of Miami. A section in Guillermo Cabrera Infante's book, Tres Tigres Tristes, has a section written under Lydia Cabrera's name, in a comical rendition of her literary voice.

Bibliography

*"Cuentos negros de Cuba"
*"¿Por qué? Cuentos negros de Cuba"
*"El Monte"
*"Refranes de negros viejos"
*"Anagó, vocabulario lucumí"
*"La sociedad secreta Abakuá, narrada por viejos adeptos."
*"Otán Iyebiyé, las piedras preciosas".
*"Ayapá: Cuentos de Jicotea"
*"La laguna sagrada de San Joaquín"
*"Yemayá y Ochún"
*"Anaforuana: ritual y símbolos de la iniciación en la sociedad secreta Abakuá"
*"Francisco y Francisca: chascarrillos de negros viejos"
*"Itinerarios del Insomnio: Trinidad de Cuba"
*"Reglas de Congo: Palo Monte Mayombe"
*"Koeko iyawó, aprende novicia: pequeño tratado de regla lucumí"
*"Cuentos para adultos, niños y retrasados mentales"
*"La Regla Kimbisa del Santo Cristo del Buen Viaje"
*"Páginas Sueltas"

External links

* [http://www.mnsu.edu/emuseum/information/biography/abcde/cabrera_lydia.html Lydia Cabrera] biography
* [http://www.library.miami.edu/chc/collections/finding_aids/chc0339_find.html Lydia Cabrera Papers] at the Cuban Heritage Collection, University of Miami Libraries
* [http://merrick.library.miami.edu/cubanHeritage/chc0339/ Digitized correspondence] from the Lydia Cabrera Papers at the Cuban Heritage Collection, University of Miami Libraries
* [http://www.habanaelegante.com/Summer99/Bustos.htm "Lydia Cabrera (1899-1999): Recapitulando en la alborada de su centenario"] (Spanish language link)