Cuban Transgressions: Ofelia Rodríguez Acosta and the Independent and Lesbian Woman/Nation

Abstract

This essay examines three of the most important novels of Cuban writer Ofelia Rodríguez Acosta (1902-1975) El triunfo de la débil presa (1925), La vida manda (1928), and Sonata interrumpida (1940). The analysis is based on the thesis that these works are a challenge to the image of the rising Cuban nation that from the first moments was based on the idea of the heterosexual family as the central social and economic unit of Cuban society. Her challenge opened the doors in Cuba from the realm of literature and journalism to formulate an ideal of the Cuban nation that included a gender plurality. Given that the road towards that ideal has been slow, tortuous, incomplete, the examination of the work of this pioneering author, silenced in the revolutionary Cuba until very recently, has crucial importance to claim a past that can provide more roots to an inclusive future.