La poesia testimonial Womanista de Excilia Saldaña, Nancy Morejón y Georgina Herrera

Abstract

[ACCESS RESTRICTED TO THE UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI AT AUTHOR'S REQUEST.] My Ph.D thesis, entitled "The Womanist Testimonial Poetry Written by Excilia Saldana, Nancy Morejon and Georgina Herrera," is a post-colonial, sociological, and historiographical analysis of the testimonial poetry written by three Afro-Cuban women poets. The theoretical framework applied is the social theory of womanism from Kemberle Crenshaw, Patricia Hill Collins and Clenora Hudson-Weens, among others. This theory received its name from Alice Walker, who proposed it for the first time in her book In Search of Our Mothers' Gardens (1983), and fills a gap that previously existed between western feminism and ethnic studies. The poems of these three authors describe not only the simultaneous oppression of gender and race that the Afro-Cuban women suffer within their society, but also celebrate the tradition, history, beauty, spirituality, arts and accomplishments of black women as a collective and cultural group. Thus, Excilia Saldana's, Nancy Morejon's and Georgina Herrera's work emerge from a different perspective than the poetry of Nicolas Guillen and the testimonial novel of Miguel Barnet, which had previously provided the main Afro-Cuban representation in the literary canon of the twentieth century. In particular, these three poets write from the female gender approach and about the social reality of Afro-Cuban peoples in the contemporary historical period. The dissertation is composed of an introduction, three chapters, one for each writer, and a conclusion. The first chapter is about Excilia Saldana's poems "Mi Nombre (Antielegia familiar)" and "Monologo de la esposa". Her work portrays a society full of violence and contradictions that causes the fragmentation of the black woman's identity. The phenomena of alienation, endoracism, gender and racial oppression, as well as the sexual trade in Cuba, are included in the analysis. The writer uses her poetry to ask for respect for the Afro-Cuban woman, considering her as a full human being and citizen. The s