Tears and Flowers

A bilingual edition of poetry that provides a unique window into Cuban émigré life

A rare glimpse into the history of the Cuban community in Key West in the early twentieth century, this book makes the poetry of Feliciano Castro available in English for the first time. A Galician Cuban who lived for decades in the southernmost city of the United States, Castro worked as a lector reading to cigar factory employees, a newspaper editor, a printer, and a writer. He published Lágrimas y flores, a collection of his poetry, in 1918. Translated here by Rhi Johnson, Castro’s poems provide a window into an overlooked literary culture.

Johnson and Joy Castro open this bilingual edition with an introduction detailing the writer’s biography, literary context, and cultural milieu. Tears and Flowers highlights questions of national identity, migration, belonging, and courtship in Cuban émigré society, connects Florida to the Spanish-speaking communities of the Caribbean and Spain, and recovers the literary archive of a rich moment in US and Latinx history for a contemporary audience.

Publication of this work made possible by a Sustaining the Humanities through the American Rescue Plan grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.