A Summer in Tenerife

Santa Cruz de Tenerife · Category: Literature · Subcategory: Literary fragments · Year: 1951 · Authors: Dulce María Loynaz

Dulce María Loynaz (Havana, Cuba, 1902-1997) is considered one of the leading figures of Spanish-language lyric poetry. She began writing poetry at a very young age and at 16, in 1919, started publishing her first poems in various Havana newspapers. In 1927 she earned a doctorate in Civil Law from the university of the same city and practised law until 1961, while simultaneously dedicating herself to literature. In the 1930s her home began to become a centre of the city's cultural life, hosting various intellectuals and artists during the so-called "juevinas", such as Federico García Lorca, Juan Ramón Jiménez, Gabriela Mistral, and Alejo Carpentier. Later she travelled through South America and Europe, participating in congresses and working as a correspondent for some Cuban newspapers. In 1951 she was elected a member of the National Academy of Arts and Letters of Cuba, and that same year was named Adoptive Daughter by the Ayuntamiento de Puerto de la Cruz. She joined the Cuban Academy of the Language in 1959 and, nine years later, the Real Academia Española. She received the Miguel de Cervantes Prize in 1992 and the following year was awarded the Order of Isabella the Catholic and the Federico García Lorca Prize.

In 1946, after divorcing her first husband, she remarried the Canarian journalist who emigrated to Cuba, Pablo Álvarez de Cañas. It was with him that the writer spent the summer of 1951 in Tenerife. From this stay comes her book A Summer in Tenerife , published in 1958, where she recounts the history and reality of the life of the Canarians seen through her own eyes, dedicating a chapter to Santa Cruz, from which we highlight:

"In Toscal the Chorros de la Reina Isabel are preserved, an old public fountain where, until just over half a century ago, the neighbours and water sellers would gather to collect water from its spout.

And my husband, who was born in one of those little houses with jasmine and lemon verbena patios, remembers, as a child, the milkmaids who came in flocks at dawn, with their water jugs in a basket on their heads and their shoes hanging from the basket... They did not wear the shoes because they were uncomfortable, but it was a matter of pride that it was known they had them."

28.469729, -16.248226