Diversity in Biography or Why ‘La Belle Créole’ is still so unusual….

Lists – all kinds of book lists – are popular, or so it would seem from the many which appear on social media! So I thought I would do a list as a post: the biographies and memoirs/autobiographies which I most enjoyed or which inspired me. These are “keepers” which are still on my bookshelf even years after I first found them. However, an odd thing happened on the way to writing this post: I took a closer look at the list I had compiled, and was very surprised by what I saw. There was definitely a pattern to my reading from childhood through college and into my early days of work. It just wasn’t the pattern I had envisioned. Or at least not completely. There was a strong sense of history, a subtheme of exile and loss, and for somewhat forgotten lives. While women (happily) did dominate the list, the demographics of the selection were rather limited, to say the least. The women in the biographies were generally European and rather grand.

Oh no, this is not a very acceptable list! That was my first panicked thought since I secretly suspect that some lists are “curated,” with much thought and care enlisted – along with a dash of the latest hashtag trend. Hmmm… perhaps I needed to rethink the list.

However, I stopped and took a deeper look at the time and context in which I had first read my choices, and things became clearer. First, the books from my younger years were generally read in the decade from the early 1970s through the early 1980s. Most I found in schools and public libraries, in suburban settings. The ones in my college years and immediately afterwards came from bookstores in Washington DC, New York and Miami. In their totality, they say as much about what was published and available as they do about my own tastes. We are all products of where and when we grew up – at least to a certain extent. Regardless of my own Cuban heritage, it would have been unusual for a small elementary school library in 1971 suburban New Jersey to have stocked children’s nonfiction featuring an historical Hispanic figure. I read what was available, and I enjoyed it – what else did I know?

Recently, at a book event for La Belle Créole, a person said to me “how unique, an historical biography of a Latin American woman.” Yes indeed, I agreed – very unusual. In the historical biography genre (at least when I grew up) if there was a book featuring a female figure from the past, it was all about queens (think Cleopatra, Elizabeth I or Catherine the Great), classic authors (think Jane Austen), or occasionally, a scientist or an adventurer: Marie Curie, Amelia Earhart, or even Helen Keller. Then repeat… More often than not, it was biographies of men that dominated. Even today, I sometimes wonder, do we need another take on the first five American presidents? It’s only in later years that a little diversity crept into my reading, and then it’s found through powerful and inspiring memoirs: Life and Death in Shanghai and When I was Puerto Rican.

So do I think it would be nice to have a more diverse base in biography? Yes!! There are so many stories from any number of countries that could be just as sweeping and enthralling as the life of a European royal. Everyone should have wonderful stories from their cultural past to hold on to and share with the wider-world. But reading broadly and widely is the key, all the while learning about the greater world, as well as one’s own heritage.

For me, the story that ignited my passion for historical biography was a book I read in third grade called So Young a Queen, the story of Poland’s fourteenth-century heroine (and saint), Jadwiga. I loved that book; it took me to castles and lands with knights, pagans and heartbreaking romance. The tale stayed with me forever, but it was also as far removed from my own experience as could be. What supplemented that interest in exotic grandeur were my grandmother’s stories from Cuba: myths, legends, folk tales and anything else that occurred to her. She adored reading just about anything, and was an inspired storyteller. I never tired of hearing her bedtime stories. Much like Mercedes’ descriptions of her homeland, my grandmother’s Cuba was a lush land where delicious fruit grew everywhere, and where children could run wild and have all sorts of adventures – until they inevitably found their way to trouble. Her creative reminiscences left a deep impression and sparked a desire to learn more about Cuba itself.

So from a tale of a young Polish queen to stories of late nineteenth and early twentieth century Cuba, all paths led to learning about and wishing to share the story of a Cuban countess in Europe. My own offering to the genre of historical biography: an exceptional woman who lived in exceptional times, somewhat forgotten today; someone who never forgot her own past and homeland.

My All-Woman List – Inspiring Biographies, Memoirs and Autobiographies! (a work in progress)

• So Young a Queen (Jadwiga of Poland) by Lois Mills
• Elizabeth the Great by Elizabeth Jenkins
• Calico Captive by Elizabeth George Speare (ok this is historical fiction, but based on a true story)
• Cleopatra, Sister of the Moon by Margaret Leighton
• Catherine the Great by Zoe Oldenbourg
• Mary, Queen of Scots by Antonia Fraser
• Princess of Siberia by Christine Sutherland
• Isak Dinesen: Life of a Storyteller by Judith Thurman
• Zelda Fitzgerald by Nancy Milford
• West with the Night by Beryl Markham
• The Last Romantic (Marie of Romania) by Hannah Pakula
• An Uncommon Woman (Empress Frederick) by Hannah Pakula
• What I Saw at the Revolution: A Political Life in the Reagan Era by Peggy Noonan
• Life and Death in Shanghai by Nien Cheng
• Wild Swans by Jung Chang
• Marie Avinov: Her Amazing Life by Paul Chavchavadze
• When I was Puerto Rican by Esmeralda Santiago
• Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire by Amanda Foreman
• Strapless (John Singer Sargent and the Fall of Madame X) by Deborah Davis
• Finding Mañana:A Memoir of a Cuban Exodus by Mirta Ojito
• My Beloved World by Sonia Sotomayor

Looking forward to reading:

• Sophie: Princess, Suffragette, Revolutionary by Anita Anand (biography of Sophia Duleep Singh , the British-raised daughter of the last Maharajah of the Sikhs)
• Isabella, The Warrior Queen by Kirstin Downey (biography of Isabel la Católica, the Spanish Queen)
• Bird of Paradise: How I Became a Latina by Raquel Cepeda (memoir of reconnecting with her roots)

Finally!!!! While I keep meaning to re-read Sor Juana by Octavio Paz (his literary biography on the Baroque Mexican poet, feminist and nun Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz) I would really love to see a woman take on the challenge and write a new biography. Sor Juana’s amazing life could read like a novel and should be shared with a wider audience!!