A Place in the Sun? Women writers in Twentieth-Century Cuba

Abstract

The brief description of Catherine Davies on the first page of this book only hints at the extensive and thorough critical work that she has published over the years, primarily in the field of contemporary Peninsular literature. As someone who has used her Peninsular studies both as a teaching and as a research tool, I approached A Place in the Sun? Women Writers in Twentieth-Century Cuba with a great deal of interest and anticipation, and I was not disappointed. By the time I had finished the book, I had been given an overview of twentieth century Cuban history (from a socio-cultural perspective), a survey of Cuban women's writing (with reference where relevant to male writers), an introduction to the African contribution to Cuba, an in-depth analysis of a great number of works by several of these women writers, and a demonstration of how theory lies at the heart of any critical endeavour. Davies achieves all of this in eight chapters, an introduction, and a final comment, rounded out with a twelve page general bibliography, a select bibliography of Cuban women writers and an index.