Literary diasporas and colonial crisis

This article studies the extent to which literary diasporas may consolidate the status and legacy of an author or, conversely, denigrate an established author’s standing and reputation, depending on strategies of memorialization, affect, ideological differences, and political circumstance. To illustrate the point, the article focuses on the three contemporary Spanish/Cuban authors, Gertrudis Gómez de Avellaneda (1814–1873), Rosalía de Castro (1837–1885), and José Martí (1853–1895), who were all active during the second half of the nineteenth century and closely connected, during their lifetimes and/or posthumously, with diasporas relating to Cuba. All three were impacted to varying degrees by Spanish–Cuban colonial relations, primarily the anticolonial wars (1868–1878 and 1895–1898), which ended with the US invasion and occupation of the island and the establishment of the neocolonial Cuban Republic. Similarly, all three were impacted by the symbolic economy of gender operating at the time.