José Martí Reader

This anthology of the writing of José Martí’s features bilingual poetry, political essays, writings on Latin American culture, and his letters.

José Martí organized and unified the movement for Cuban independence and died on the battlefield. His dedication to the goal of Cuban freedom made his name a synonym for liberty throughout Latin America.
This collection of the writing of José Martí’s features bilingual poetry, his political essays and writings on culture, and his letters. Readers will discover a literary genius and an insightful political commentator on the troubled relationship between the United States and Latin America.

“Martí was the guide of his time but also stands as the anticipator of ours,” wrote Cuban revolutionary leader Carlos Rafael Rodríguez. Martí was an outstanding teacher, journalist, poet and revolutionary of his time, able to interweave the threads of Latin American culture and history.CONTENTS
PREFACE
CHRONOLOGY

INTRODUCTION by Ivan A. Schulman

PART 1: WRITINGS ON THE AMERICAS

Political Prison in Cuba (1871)
The Spanish Republic and the Cuban Revolution
(February 15, 1873)
The Memorial Meeting in Honor of Karl Marx
(March 29, 1883)
Wandering Teachers (May 1884)
Indians in the United States (October 25, 1885)
Dedication of the Statue of Liberty (October 29, 1886)
The Munkácsy Christ (December 2, 1886)
The Funeral of the Haymarket Martyrs
(November 13, 1887)
Three Heroes (from The Golden Age, July–October 1889)
Mother America (December 19, 1889)
Our America (January 1, 1891)
San Martín (1891)
With All, For the Good of All (November 26, 1891)
Our Ideas (March 14, 1892)
The Cuban Revolutionary Party (April 3, 1892)
My Race (April 16, 1893)
Simón Bolívar (October 28, 1893)
The Truth About the United States (March 23, 1894)
Manifesto of Montecristi (March 25, 1895)
Campaign Diary (April–May 1895)

PART 2: LETTERS

Letter to mother (October 23, 1862)
Letter to mother (November 10, 1869)
Letter to sister Amelia (January 1882)
Letter to General Máximo Gómez (October 20, 1884)
Letter to Fermín Valdés Domínguez (February 28, 1887)
Letter to the Editor of the New York Evening Post
(March 23, 1889)
Letter to mother (May 15, 1894)
Letter to Federico Henríquez y Carvajal
(March 25, 1895)
Letter to mother (March 25, 1895)
Letter to son José (April 1, 1895)
Letter to Carmen Miyares de Mantilla and her children
(April 16, 1895)
Letter to the New York Herald (May 2, 1895)
Letter to Manuel Mercado (May 18, 1895)

PART 3: VERSE
Ismaelillo
Dedication
Príncipe Enano / Little Prince
Tábanos Fieros / Fierce Horseflies
Free Verse
My Poetry
Hierro / Iron
Yugo y Estrella / Yoke and Star
Crin Hirsuta / Bristling Mane
Simple Verses
Prologue

I. Yo soy un hombre sincero /
A sincere man am I
X. El alma trémula y sola /
My soul tremulous and lonely
XXIII. Yo quiero salir del mundo /
From this world I will depart
XXXIX. Cultivo una rosa blanca /
I have a white rose to tend
XLV. Sueño con claustros de mármol /
I dream of marble cloisters
XLVI. Vierte, corazón, tu pena /
Your sorrows, my heart, you should hide

ENDNOTES
BIBLIOGRAPHY
ABOUT THE AUTHORJosé Martí, (born January 28, 1853, Havana, Cuba—died May 19, 1895, Dos Ríos), Cuban poet and essayist, patriot and martyr, who became the symbol of Cuba’s struggle for independence from Spain. His dedication to the goal of Cuban freedom made his name a synonym for liberty throughout Latin America. As a patriot, Martí organized and unified the movement for Cuban independence and died on the battlefield fighting for it. As a writer, he was distinguished for his personal prose and deceptively simple, sincere verse on themes of a free and united America.

Educated first in Havana, Martí had published several poems by the age of 15, and at age 16 he founded a newspaper, La Patria Libre (“The Free Fatherland”). During a revolutionary uprising that broke out in Cuba in 1868, he sympathized with the patriots, for which he was sentenced to six months of hard labour and, in 1871, deported to Spain. There he continued his education and his writing, receiving both an M.A. and a degree in law from the University of Zaragoza in 1874 and publishing political essays. He spent the next few years in France, in Mexico, and in Guatemala, writing and teaching, and returned to Cuba in 1878.

Ivan A. Schulman is Professor Emeritus of Spanish and Comparative Literature at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.