Manuel de la Cruz Fernández

Cuban writer, journalist, and literary critic. He cultivated an irreverent style and was characterized by his independence-minded thinking.

He was born in La Habana. He completed his early studies at the San Anacleto school. His parents advocated for Cuban independence, which influenced his education.

In the year 1880 he met Lieutenant Colonel Francisco Lufriú, a veteran of the War of the Ten Years, who told him memorable anecdotes from the conflict. Under those circumstances, the young De la Cruz achieved a clear, almost vivid understanding of the first struggle for the emancipation of the Island.

Between 1883 and 1884 he traveled to France and Spain. He settled in Barcelona, where he began his literary training. From Spanish lands he sent contributions to Cuban publications La Habana Elegante and Revista Habanera.

Upon returning to Cuba he maintained constant journalistic work in La Ilustración Cubana (1885), from Barcelona, and El Cubano (1887).

In 1888 he engaged in a press polemic with writer Cirilo Villaverde concerning the political affiliation of Narciso López, in which De la Cruz defended the thesis of López's annexationism.

He began working in 1889 as a correspondent on the Island for the newspaper La Nación, of Buenos Aires, Argentina, to which he sent works of literary criticism. From his position as correspondent he promoted abroad the most outstanding Cuban personalities. He was a reporter for the Argentine newspaper until his death. He was an editor of El Fígaro and Revista Cubana, and also wrote for Sociedad Económica de Amigos del País (SEAP), El Almendares, and El Porvenir.

As a narrator he created some significant works of fiction, among which stand out La hija del montero and El marco de la sierra, with discrete romantic settings and full of mystery.

In Cromitos cubanos, a volume of twenty sketches, he traced the profile of relevant contemporaries such as Rafael Montoro, Rafael María Merchán, Ricardo del Monte, and José Joaquín Palma. In that work he inaugurated his style, influenced by the prose of José Martí, but with its own rebellious seal, marked by his ability to concentrate multiple concepts and nuances in few words. His most accomplished work was Episodios de la revolución cubana, published in 1892.

Episodios de la revolución cubana is a testimonial novel in which De la Cruz gathered the memoirs of several protagonists of the War of the Ten Years: Ramón Roa, Manuel Sanguily Garrite, Enrique Collazo, Esteban Borrero, Félix Figueredo, among others. With that basis he articulated a collective narrative that marked the end of colonial Cuban literature and began the literature of campaign, soon continued by A pie y descalzo, by Ramón Roa.

Episodios de la revolución cubana, a work of evident defense and rescue of the libertarian feat initiated in 1868, was a surprise for the Island's public and provoked a rapid counter-response from the colonial authorities.

De la Cruz dedicated himself, through literature and criticism, to the task of remembrance and propaganda regarding the War of the Ten Years and independence ideas, for which he was given the nickname "The Mambi of Letters."

At the request of Argentine editor Francisco Laggomaggiore, he prepared the chapter dedicated to the development of literature in Cuba for the work América literaria (1890) that he was preparing. The contribution, with the title "Historical Overview of the Literary Movement on the Island of Cuba," studied Cuban productions from 1790 to 1890. That text demonstrated his knowledge on the subject and highlighted the relevance of authors such as José María Heredia and Gertrudis Gómez de Avellaneda.

De la Cruz became a collaborator of José Martí in the liberation project that would later be known as the War of Independence. At Martí's request he traveled around the Island in order to become acquainted with and prepare the territory for the war that was being prepared in exile. In 1894 he traveled to eastern Cuba, carrying a secret message from Juan Gualberto Gómez to unify independence forces. On a quick trip to Santiago de Cuba, he then met with veterans of the War of the Ten Years such as Guillermo Moncada.

When the War of Independence began he moved to Cayo Hueso, in the United States, where he began an intense campaign of propaganda in favor of Cuban emancipation. From Tampa he maintained his contributions to La Nación, through which he publicized the initial process of the conflict. Later he moved to New York, and there he continued sending articles to the Argentine newspaper that he gathered under the heading "The War of Cuba."

In New York he worked under the orders of Tomás Estrada Palma as secretary of the Delegation of the Cuban Revolutionary Party (PRC), and as editor of its newspaper, Patria.

De la Cruz compiled data for a biography of Major General Ignacio Agramonte, a leader of the War of the Ten Years. He apparently came to draft some chapters, but among the papers he left behind, his heirs found only loose notes. He was also preparing at the time of his death a volume of Cromitos argentinos y uruguayos, of which he only published the profiles dedicated to Carlos Guido Spano, Rafael Obligado, and Eduardo Acevedo Díaz.

He used the pseudonyms An Academic of the Language, The Academic of Banes, Isaías, An Assiduous Contributor, Emmanuel, Juan de las Guásimas, Micros, A Westerner, An Editor, Raimundo Rosas, Juan Sincero, and Bonifacio Sánchez.

He died suddenly in New York on February 19, 1896, at the age of 34.

Source: EnCaribe.org