Celia En Cuba 1925-1962 by Rosa Marquetti Torres

CELIA EN CUBA 1925-1962 (Spanish Edition, Desmemoriados, 2022) is much more than a novel, a book, or an essay. Author Rosa Marquetti Torres meticulously documents Celia Cruz’s beginnings in Cuba, where she was a tremendous success. She also contextualizes Cruz’s ascending path as a diva and as a protagonist of the Golden Age of Cuban Music, Theatre, Radio, Television, and Cabaret. In addition, she shines a light on the beginnings of Cruz’s complex relationship with the prevailing politics in her country. 

Based on the press of the time, in Cuba and in countries where Cruz performed, including Cuba, Mexico, Venezuela, Haiti, Santo Domingo, Colombia, Panama, Peru, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Spain, the Netherlands, Curacao, and the United States, Marquetti also includes interviews, statements, and texts.

Celia En Cuba includes over sixty published and unpublished images, documents, prints and contains five annexes with recordings, radio shows and appearances, commercials, a filmography, and information on the orchestras and ensembles that accompanied Cruz between 1925 and 1962. 

Currently, Celia En Cuba is only available in Spanish and paperback. However, the author says she is working on making the book available in a digital format (no date given). There has yet to be a word on whether or not the author plans to publish an English translation of Celia in Cuba. Still, given that Cruz was “La Guarachera del Mundo,” I hope Ms. Marquetti considers sharing Celia Cruz’s amazing story with the world.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Born in Alquízar, Havana, Cuba, Rosa Marquetti Torres received a degree in philology from the University of Havana. Her professional connection with Cuban music began in 1993 as an executive at the Pablo Milanés Foundation. The Pablo Milanés Foundation was the first private Afro-descendant institutional initiative in Cuban culture. Since then, it has grown with projects in diverse domains such as the record industry, intellectual property, archival, production, consulting, and musical supervision in films and documentaries, curatorship, and historiographic and music research. Marquetti is the author of Chano Pozo: A Life (1915-1948), El Niño con su tres. Andrés Echevarría Callava, Niño Rivera, Desmemoriados. Histories of Cuban Music and Celia in Cuba (1925-1960). She also created and is the editor of the blog Desmemoriados Histories of Cuban Music (www.desmemoriados.com), founded in 2014. Marquetti has also worked at Magic Music Records, the General Society of Authors and Editors of Spain, and the Gladys Palmera Collection. Her texts and research on significant events, characteristics, and figures of Cuban music have been published in specialized and general journals and magazines in Cuba, Colombia, Spain, France, and the United States.

View an in-depth (Spanish) interview with Rosa Marquetti Torres HERE.