Araceli García Carranza Bassetti

Distinguished bibliographer. She worked for many years at the Biblioteca Nacional "José Martí" holding different positions starting with the leadership of the Department of Cuban Collection and simultaneously advising the network of public libraries in Cuba.

She completed her studies through 7th grade in Guanabacoa, and later graduated with a degree in Sciences and Letters from the Institute of Secondary Education in La Habana in 1955.

She taught and worked as a substitute in several public schools in Guanabacoa from 1952 to 1956 and as a kindergarten assistant in El Cerro from 1956 to 1959. Following the triumph of the Revolution she worked as a teacher until 1961 and as principal from that year until 1962 of an elementary school; she participated in the Literacy Campaign and was a secondary level teacher in the school year (1962-1963), while also completing a course in Sociology at the University of Chapell Hills and graduating as a Doctor in Philosophy and Letters from the University of La Habana in 1962.

From that year on she has worked systematically at the Biblioteca Nacional "José Martí", where she has held the position of head of the Department of Cuban Collection (1972-1979) and advised, simultaneously, the Network of Public Libraries of the Country.

She served as Technical Advisor (1971-1981) and later has carried out scientific-technical information activities in the Department of Bibliographic Research.
For more than two decades she has developed continuous collaboration with Martian bibliographies in specialized journals Anuario Martiano and "Anuario del Centro de Estudios Martianos".
Among other periodic publications, her work has also appeared in "Revista de la Biblioteca Nacional José Martí", "Imán", "Universidad de La Habana", "Revolución y Cultura".
Multiple bibliographies of cardinal figures in Cuban culture such as Alejo Carpentier, José Lezama Lima, Fernando Ortiz, Elías Entralgo, as well as various chronologies and research works.
She has collaborated in foreign publications El Nacional (Venezuela), the Informative Journal VINITIO (USSR) and in numerous indexes.
At the University of La Habana she has served as a member or president of committees for the discussion of multiple degree theses and course papers.
She has participated as a speaker in numerous events related to her work; she was a member of the Cuban delegation to the meeting of Experts on Current National Bibliography in Moscow.
Delegate to several public library meetings (as a speaker).
Member of the Advisory Board of the "Alejo Carpentier" Chair.
Member of the jury for the National Prize for Cultural Research 2019.

She worked at the Library from February 1st, 1962. Between analytical indexes, bibliographies, department leadership positions, services and collaborations on the profession in journals, catalogs and other documents, six decades have passed. I feel embedded in the collections and in the marble of the Library, I feel part of it, she has expressed.

A long list records the most important undertakings of Carranza, a professional who is always seen in various literary spaces as a book herself, discoursing about what others write. "I had the opportunity to help María Lastayo, head of Selection at the center, to transfer don Fernando Ortiz's library to the Biblioteca Nacional, and when placing the papers on the shelves it occurred to me to make his biobibliography.
I had previously made analytical indexes of nineteenth-century journals, and I knew about this type of work because in the Magazine of the Library, its founding director, don Domingo Figarola Caneda, cultivated it in the years 1909-1913 and, moreover, from 1965 on it was very useful as a small section in our Cuban Bibliography, which we published until 1989. Director Sidroc Ramos immediately approved the project for me."

"A year earlier, in 1968, Cintio Vitier founded the Sala Martí and began publishing the Anuario Martiano, and asked me—starting with Anuario 2—to compile the bibliography of José Martí, which I published through Anuario 7. When the Centro de Estudios Martianos was founded, at the urging of Roberto Fernández Retamar, I continued publishing it in the Anuario del Centro, until today."

"In 1972 Alejo Carpentier donated his collection to the Library. I processed and systematized it until it was deposited in the foundation that bears his name. From that year until today I compile his biobibliography.

Afterward I compiled the bibliographies of other great figures in Cuban culture such as Carlos Rafael Rodríguez, Elías Entralgo, María Villar Buceta, José Lezama Lima, Cintio Vitier, Roberto Fernández Retamar, Emilio Roig de Leuchsenring, Eusebio Leal and Armando Hart Dávalos, not forgetting my texts in the Magazine of the Library, related to the history and theory of bibliography and bibliographic-critical essays on some figures such as Alejo Carpentier.

Other bibliographies such as those of the wars of independence and of other important figures, which would make the list very long, I believe have been and are useful to scholars and researchers."

Equipped with that unsurpassable value that experience offers, Araceli currently continues "working" on Martí, on Carpentier, on Lezama. She has begun the bibliography of doctor Graziella Pogolotti, with Eloísa Carreras she compiles the work of Armando Hart Dávalos, and she is head of the Department of Research at the Library.

Having lived to show others' work, today the celebration is for this lady who considers herself "shy, respectful, disciplined and a lover of truth." Along with writer Julio Travieso Serrano, the 31st International Book Fair of La Habana will be dedicated to her. Meanwhile, Araceli assures that she is "very conscious that I do not know enough, that I lack much, because if someone knows that they do not know it is the librarian, who in one way or another faces all branches of knowledge, the immense world of knowledge. I always assume that saying of 'I only know that I know nothing'."

Her prestige extends beyond the country: in Mexico, Dominican Republic, Colombia, Spain and the United States she has given lectures or collaborated on various projects. From 1995 to 2005 she was a corresponding member of the Bibliography Section of the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA), and in 2004 she was appointed member of the Editorial Board of the American journal Cuban Studies.

She holds the position of associate full professor at the University of La Habana, as well as titular researcher. She has exercised teaching extensively in the area of library science, including in postgraduate courses at that University, and has been a member of the Scientific Categories Tribunal of the Ministry of Culture since 1995.

Distinctions and Recognition

Among other numerous recognitions she has received the Distinction for Cuban Culture and the Alejo Carpentier and Nicolás Guillén medals. On two occasions she has been selected as National Labor Vanguard.

In 2007 the International Colloquium From Papyrus to Virtual Library, of the Casa de las Américas, paid her tribute, and the José Martí Cultural Society awarded her the prize The Utility of Virtue.

She was awarded the "Raúl Gómez García" medal and the National Prize for Cultural Research 2003.

Active Bibliography

Analytical indexes of the Anales de Don Ramón de la Sagra, 114 pp., 1970.
Index of Cuban journals 19th century, 464 pp., 1970.
Biobibliography of Don Fernando Ortiz, 250 pp., 1970.
Analytical index of La Gaceta de Cuba, 363 pp., 1974.
Index of the Magazine of the Biblioteca Nacional "José Martí" 1909-1969, 365 pp., 1975.
Index of the Magazine of the Biblioteca Nacional 1970-1975, 63 pp., 1976.
Bibliography of the War of Independence (1895-1898), 746 pp., 1976.
Index of the Bulletin of the Anthropological Society of the Island of Cuba, 22 pp., 1976.
Brief bio-bibliography of doctor Ramiro Guerra, 59 pp., [197-].
Index of the Magazine of the Biblioteca Nacional 1976-1980, 35 pp., 1980.
Bibliography of The Kingdom of This World (1962-1982), 20 pp., 1982.
Bibliography of The Lost Steps (1953-1983), 23 pp., 1983.
Biobibliography of Alejo Carpentier, 644 pp., 1984.
Carpentier in Letters and Notes: catalog, 159 pp., 1984.
Bibliographic notes on a precursor stage in the young years of Alejo Carpentier, 18 pp., 1985.
Bibliography of Emilio Roig de Leuchsenring, 2 vol., 1986.
Eugenio María de Hostos at the Biblioteca Nacional "José Martí": bibliography, 72 pp., 1988.
Bibliography of the assault on the Moncada barracks: Supplement 1973-1987, 125 pp., 1989.

Passive Bibliography

Augier, Ángel: "Bibliography of Alejo Carpentier", Revista de Literatura Cubana, pp. 165-166, Jan-Jun, 1986.
--------------: "Bibliography of Carlos Rafael Rodríguez, Revista de Literatura Cubana, pp. 165, Jan-Jun, 1989.
Cejudo, Célida: "Bibliography of Alejo Carpentier", Boletín de Resúmenes y Reseñas, pp. 47-48, Jan-Jun, 1985.
Fernández Robaina, Tomás: "The fruit of persistence", Revolución y Cultura, pp. 75-76, Mar, 1987.
--------------: "A bibliographic supplement of the Bibliography of Juan Marinello", Revista de la Biblioteca Nacional, Sep-Dec, 1987.
-------------: "A book with luck", Revolución y Cultura, pp. 80-82, Aug, 1990.
Martínez Mota, Francisco: "The independence of Cuba and the generation of '98", Anuario L/L, pp. 412-415, 1976-77.
Perdomo, Omar: "Bibliography of the journal Social", Letras Cubanas, pp. 272-274, Jan-Feb, 1987.
Suárez León, Carmen: "A work of passion", Revolución y Cultura, pp. 68, Oct, 1987.