It was a long time since we had talked about Caribbean literature on this blog. After several posts speaking of nature and places to visit in the Caribbean, today we are going to talk about a literary curiosity that perhaps few know.
I mean Gertrudis Gomez de Avellaneda, author of what is considered the first anti-slavery novel in history: Sat.
Born in Port-au-Prince, current Camagüey (Cuba), in March 1814, she was the daughter of Manuel Gómez de Avellaneda, commander of the Spanish Navy assigned to Cuba, and of Francisca de Arteaga y Betancourt, a Cuban belonging to an illustrious and wealthy island family. .
He ended up becoming one of the most important figures of Spanish Romanticism. Thanks to the good education received and the reading of French and English romantic writers such as Byron, Victor Hugo, Lamartine, Chateaubriand or Madame de Staë, his literary vocation is reinforced from childhood and from an early age he shows his determination to live his own life rejecting, for example, an arranged marriage that would mean being disinherited by his grandfather.
In 1836 he moved to Spain, the country where he lived until his death in 1873 and where he developed his literary career with great success.
Although she is considered one of the forerunners of the Spanish-American novel, in addition to being considered by Marcelino Menéndez y Pelayo as one of the greatest poets in the Spanish language, today we want to highlight her novel Sat.
Published in 1841, the book deals with the situation of slaves and women in 400.000th century Cuba based on the story of the protagonist, Sab. Still a Spanish colony, Cuba at the time of the novel had about XNUMX slaves.
The novel tells the story of a mulatto slave, Sab, who, in love with Carlota, the daughter of his master, reaches the highest degree of self-denial, making a fortune, legitimately his, pass into the hands of his beloved woman without her knowledge. which makes possible the marriage of Carlota with Enrique, the man of her dreams.
Although slavery is at the center of history and precedes Uncle Tom's Cabin, by Harriet Beecher Stowe, many critical voices deny it sufficient social conscience to belong to abolitionist literature and all the more to be considered the first anti-slavery novel in history.
However, the undoubted passion about the questions of love, virtue and ethics is reinforced by a bold critique of slavery and human rights at a time when such approaches were dangerous.
La Avellaneda tries to break with established values and above all, underline the power of love that knows no limits other than those of the human heart itself.
One of the great Caribbean novels in history.