28 Facts About Lydia Cabrera

Lydia Cabrera was a Cuban independent ethnographer, writer, and literary activist.

Lydia Cabrera was an authority on Santeria and other Afro-Cuban religions.

Lydia Cabrera was one of the first writers to recognize and sensitively publish on the richness of Afro-Cuban culture and religion.

Lydia Cabrera made valuable contributions in the areas of literature, anthropology, art, ethnomusicology, and ethnology.

In El Monte, Cabrera fully described the major Afro-Cuban religions: Regla de Ocha and Ifa, which are both derived from traditional Yoruba religion; and Palo Monte, which originated in Central Africa.

Lydia Cabrera is credited by literary critics for having transformed Afro-Cuban oral narratives into literature, which is, written works of art, while anthropologists rely on her accounts of oral information collected during interviews with santeros, babalawos, and paleros, and on her descriptions of religious ceremonies.

Lydia Cabrera's father, Raimundo Cabrera, was a writer, lawyer, prominent man in society, and an advocate for Cuba's independence.

Lydia Cabrera's mother, Elisa Marcaida Casanova, was a housewife and respected socialite.

Lydia Cabrera's father was the president of the first Cuban corporation, La Sociedad Economica de Amigos del Pais, founded in the eighteenth century.

Lydia Cabrera owned a popular literary journal, Cuba y America, where Lydia got her first experience as a writer.

At the age of thirteen, Lydia Cabrera wrote a weekly anonymous column that appeared in her father's journal.

Lydia Cabrera covered topics relevant to her specific community, such as wedding announcements, births, or obituaries.

The family had many Afro-Cuban servants and child caretakers, through whom young Lydia Cabrera learned about African folklore, stories, tradition, and religions.

At that time it was not socially acceptable for a woman to pursue a high school diploma, so Lydia Cabrera finished her secondary education on her own.

Lydia Cabrera moved to Paris to study art and religion at L'Ecole du Louvre Lydia Cabrera studied drawing and painting in Paris with theatrical Russian exile Alexandra Exter.

Lydia Cabrera lived in Paris for 11 years and returned home in 1938.

For most of her life, Lydia Cabrera had a large interest in Afro-Cuban culture.

Lydia Cabrera had been introduced to their folklore at a very young age by her Afro-Cuban nanny and Afro-Cuban seamstress.

Lydia Cabrera moved to a ranch, La Quinta San Jose, in the suburb of Havana, Marianao, located just outside the barrio Pogolotti where she conducted most her research on Afro-Cuban culture.

Since they did not accept women as members, Lydia Cabrera relied on the use of interviews to gain information for her book.

Lydia Cabrera's career spanned decades before the Revolution, as well as many years after the revolution in Cuba.

Lydia Cabrera left the country in 1960 shortly after the revolution and never returned.

Lydia Cabrera left as an exile, first going to Madrid and later settling in Miami, FL.

Lydia Cabrera received several honorary doctorate degrees, including one from the University of Miami in 1987.

Lydia Cabrera describes her stories as "transpositions," but they went much further than a simple retelling.

Lydia Cabrera recreated and altered elements, characters, and themes of African and universal folklore, but she modified the traditional stories by adding details of Cuban customs of the 19th and early 20th centuries.

Toward the last years of her life, Lydia Cabrera worked diligently to edit and publish the many notes she had collected during more than thirty years of research in Cuba.

For many years, Lydia Cabrera had stated her dislike for the revolution and its communist ideology.