Tears and Flowers

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A bilingual edition of poetry that provides a unique window into Cuban emigre life A rare glimpse into the history of the Cuban community in Key West in the early twentieth century, this book makes the poetry of Feliciano Castro available in English for the first time. A Galician Cuban who lived for decades in the southernmost city of the United States, Castro worked as a lector reading to cigar factory employees, a newspaper editor, a printer, and a writer. He published Lagrimas y flores, a collection of his poetry, in 1918. Translated here by Rhi Johnson, Castro's poems provide a window into an overlooked literary culture.

Johnson and Joy Castro open this bilingual edition with an introduction detailing the writer's biography, literary context, and cultural milieu. Tears and Flowers highlights questions of national identity, migration, belonging, and courtship in Cuban emigre society, connects Florida to the Spanish-speaking communities of the Caribbean and Spain, and recovers the literary archive of a rich moment in US and Latinx history for a contemporary audience.

Publication of this work made possible by a Sustaining the Humanities through the American Rescue Plan grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.