Sometimes beaten, never imprisoned. Georgina Herrera and Belkis Ayon: a poetics of self-representation

The goal of this article is to analyze the representation of the black woman in the work of the Cuban poet Georgina Herrera and the engraver Belkin Ayon, and the way their discourse about their sexuality, their race, and their genre has contributed towards the formation of a national identity. With the aim of articulating the historical and social context of Afro-Cubans, I establish a brief itinerary which begins in the mid 20th century and ends with the so called "Periodo Especial" in the 1990s. On a second phase, I address the process of self-representation in Herrera and Ayon through the analysis and subsequent comparison of their literary and pictorial works respectively. My objective is to bring to light the motivations that lead both women to create a poetic discourse based on their ancestral African legacy. It will become apparent that this study offers a vision of the Afro-Cuban woman from a feminist perspective. My approach also takes their race, class, and genre into account.