Regarded as «Cuba's most mysterious poet», Juan Francisco Manzano continues to intrigue scholars across disciplines. Using a postcolonial approach, this book breaks new ground by exploring the poet's connection with the Irish civil rights champion, Richard Robert Madden. Drawing on previously untapped sources, Gera C. Burton takes a fresh look at the relationship between these two extraordinary individuals to reveal facts considered critical in achieving an understanding of their association, with particular resonance for postcolonial studies. What emerges, regardless of their ambivalence, is the creation of a strategic alliance forged by the two writers in opposition to the colonial powers. Scholars in the fields of Latin American, postcolonial, and Diasporic studies, along with specialists in Cuban and Irish studies will welcome this significant contribution to the body of work on «la gente sin historia» the people without a history.

Autorentext

The Author: Gera C. Burton was educated at University College Dublin, where she received a B.Comm. (Bachelor's degree in Business) and a H.Dip.Ed. (Higher Diploma in Education), and the University of Missouri-Columbia, where she received her Ph.D. in Romance languages and literatures and where she is currently an instructor/administrator.

Zusammenfassung
"This is the most original and comprehensive analysis of the relationship between Manzano and Madden available. Dr. Burton combines, in her excellent study, extensive archival research with post-colonial theory to interpret the writings and times of two men, separated by culture but bound together in their resistance to repression." (Dr. Marvin Lewis, Professor of Spanish and Director, Afro-Romance Institute for Languages of the African Diaspora)
"Gera Burton's book is a fascinating study of the cultural and psychological distortions wrought by imperialism and colonization - but it is also the heartening analysis of an unusual and successful biracial and transatlantic alliance between two early 19th-century combatants against imperial injustice: R.R. Madden, a servant of the British Empire yet author of subversive histories of Irish rebellion; and Juan Francisco Manzano, the great Cuban slave poet." (Dr. Kerby Miller, Professor of History and author of 'Emigrants and Exiles')