Aurelia Castillo de González

She was a Cuban writer of short stories and poems. She founded the Academy of Arts and Letters. Among her work stands out the translation of the book The Daughter of Yorio by D'Annunzio. A patriot and the most prominent journalist of the 19th Century in Cuba.

In the legendary city of Santa María del Puerto del Príncipe, known today as Camagüey, Aurelia Castillo de González was born in January of 1842, one of the most prominent journalists of the nineteenth century.

From a very early age, a great passion for letters appeared in her life and until her death, which occurred on August sixth, 1920, she remained active in various media outlets of the time.

In 1875, during the Ten Years' War, she was exiled along with her husband, Spanish Army Colonel José Francisco González, due to the protest he made against the execution of the Cuban patriot doctor Antonio Luaces Iraola.

From then on, both of them visited various countries in Europe and America and she prepared travel chronicles, which were highly celebrated by readers of the time.

In 1895, Aurelia Castillo de González was widowed and shortly afterward had to leave the Island again, this time expelled by the bloodthirsty Spanish Captain General Valeriano Weyler.

When the Necessary War ended, she returned to Cuba and fully engaged in literary and journalistic work in various publications such as: El Fígaro, La Habana Elegante, and El País, among others.

When the National Academy of Arts and Letters was founded in La Habana in 1910, five women joined its ranks, three of them Cuban by birth: Nieves Xenes, Dulce María Borrero, and Aurelia Castillo. The other two were Dominican painter Adriana Billini Gautreau and Puerto Rican poetess Lola Rodríguez de Tió.

With more than seven decades of life, Aurelia presided over the commission that was in charge of the celebrations to commemorate in Cuba the centenary of the distinguished Camagüey poetess María Gertrudis Gómez de Avellaneda.