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Aída Cartagena Portalatín

May 30, 2019

Was born in Moca, Dominican Republic, in 1918. She undertook advanced courses in Museum Studies and Theory in the School of Plastic Arts of Université Paris 1. She belonged to the poetry group La Poesía Sorprendida and founded the publishing company Brigadas Dominicanas, with the purpose of publishing the work of local authors. Cartagena Portalatín was a researcher in and director of Santo Domingo’s Museum of Anthropology, a UNESCO adviser and a jury member for the Casa de las Américas literary prize. She published ten poetry volumes, among them Una mujer está sola (1955), La voz desatada (1962) and En la casa del tiempo (1984), as well as the novels Escalera para Electra (1970) and La tarde en que murió Estefanía (1983). Her essays mirror her concern for the marginalization of women and the population of African origin in Caribbean societies; the Dominican publishing house Cielonaranja gathered and published them posthumously with the title Ensayos de la Isla Abierta in 2016. Portalatín passed away in the Dominican Republic in 1994.