The Quesadas of Cuba: Biographers and Editors of José Martí
Students of the life and writings of Jose Marti y Perez (1853–1895), the National Hero of Cuba, will be forever indebted to the lifelong efforts of Marti’s close friend, fellow revolutionist, and “literary heir,” Gonzalo de Quesada y Arostegui, and to those of his son, Gonzalo de Quesada y Miranda. Through painstaking research and editing they have preserved, over a period of nearly seventy years, the record of Marti’s prodigious writings as a revolutionist, journalist, novelist, dramatist, and poet. It is no exaggeration to say that most of the writing on this remarkable Cuban is derived from their carefully edited collections of his works. Gonzalo de Quesada y Arostegui, as one of the architects of Cuban independence, Cuba’s first Minister to the United States, and major participant in the early International Conferences of American States, is deserving of special attention by scholars in the Americas. Now that a third official edition of Marti’s writings is nearing completion by Gonzalo de Quesada y Miranda in Cuba, a biographical and bibliographical sketch of the Quesadas, father and son, is in order.