by Alba de Cespedes

Alba de Céspedes was born in Rome, Italy, in 1911 to an Italian mother and a Cuban father (serving as Cuban ambassador to Italy at the time). Although de Céspedes was raised to speak both Spanish and Italian, she wrote the majority of her literary works in her mother’s native tongue. De Céspedes’s passion for writing began with the poems she composed as a small child, which were the first products of a talent her father encouraged her to keep developing. Married at the age of 15 and a mother by 16, de Céspedes put her writing career on hold until her divorce at the age of 20. At 24, she published a collection of short stories and then returned to writing poetry. In the 1930s, while Italy was under the Fascist dictatorship of Benito Mussolini, de Céspedes participated in...