A Woman in Her Garden

Born in Cuba in 1902, Dulce Maria Loynaz established her reputation as a poet in the first half of the 20th century. After the Cuban Revolution in 1959, she retreated to her beloved house in Havana, vowing never to write poetry again. Although her class privilege gave her the means to leave the island, she steadfastly refused to do so, even after her husband left in 1961. Her fierce loyalty to Cuba so devoid of political ideology, touched a nerve with those seeking to reclaim the cultural wealth of their nation. After she received the Miguel de Cervante Prize, the most prestigious writing award in the Spanish language, in 1992, Loynaz came to be seen as a national jewel, a holy relic of a Creole aristocracy sufficiently loyal in its ideals about Cuban national independence that it could be respectfully win a place in post-revolutionary Cuba. She died in 1997.