University Libraries Promotion and Tenure Recognition

I chose this title for a number of reasons: José Martí (1853-1895), the apostle of Cuban independence and one of the major poets and writers of nineteenth-century Latin America, understood and championed—before many others—the importance and necessity of the struggle for racial equality and justice in his homeland and beyond. Living in exile in New York, he was a keen observer, commentator and critic of U.S. culture, politics, and events that both shaped and reflected the profound realities of the young nation's own history, democratic traditions, foreign policy, and society, while also affecting the cultural, political, and economic life of other nations of the hemisphere. This comprehensive book exemplifies the spirit, style, and commitment of Martí's remarkable prose. A quintessential collection of all the known journalistic pieces that Martí wrote and published while based in New York, it is an invaluable contribution to the bibliography of an outstanding writer whose influence on past and present writers, artists, and thinkers of the Americas and elsewhere remains solidly intact more than a century after his death. I used the hardcover volume in a recent graduate course and the students found it extremely useful, well organized, and easy to use. I am confident that faculty, students and general readers of Spanish will find it a welcome addition to the Penn State University Libraries.