Manuel Dias Martines

At the beginning of our century, a great change took place in Cuban literature, due to the intervention of North American imperialism in the political and economic life of the country. The appearance of the "evil of the twentieth century" in our homeland, with its negative aspects, helped to establish in the people a higher political consciousness - a consequence of the struggle against the new enemy - which found reflection in the work of writers and poets, moved by the problems of the young Cuban nation. This change became clear in the fact that from the patriotic themes arising from the wars of liberation against Spanish Caesarism, which continued, with brief intervals of apparent lull, from 1868 to 1898, considered more with nationalist passion than with political objectivity and enveloped in the sentimental breath of romanticism, our best writers moved on to the development of a theme that had its roots in the social problems of the island nation that had just been created on May 20, 1902. That is to say: from a literature that generally reflected the outbreaks of the struggle of Creole society for liberation from Spanish domination, it almost unexpectedly entered a literature that fought in the public field and now reflected both patriotic demands and the forms of class struggle.