Florit, Eugenio (1903–1997)

Eugenio Florit (b. 15 October 1903; d. 1997), Cuban-Spanish poet. Florit was born in Madrid and lived in Spain until 1918, when his family moved to Havana. He received a law degree from the University of Havana in 1926. In 1936 Florit befriended the Spanish poet Juan Ramón Jiménez. In 1940 he moved to New York to work for the Cuban consulate there. From 1945 to 1969 he taught at Barnard College, then part of Columbia University, and during summers, at Middlebury College, Vermont. He was the first codirector and later the director of the New York literary magazine Revista Hispánica Moderna. Florit edited and introduced such anthologies of poetry as La poesía hispanoamericana desde el modernismo, on which he collaborated with the eminent critic José Olivio Jiménez. In 1982 he moved to Miami, where he continues to reside.

As of the mid-1990s, Florit was one of the best-known living Cuban poets. His work is noted for its muted tones, religious—almost mystical—themes and its mastery of traditional poetic forms. Asonante final (1955) and Doble acento (1937) are two of the most important of his books. Florit has also been an excellent translator of American poets.

See alsoLiterature: Spanish America .

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Luis González Del Valle and Roberto Esquenazi-Mayo, eds., Obras completas, 5 vols. (1991).

Additional Bibliography

Florit, Eugenio, Ana Rosa Núñez, Rita Martín, and Lesbia Orta Varona. Homenaje a Eugenio Florit. Miami: Ediciones Universal, 2000.

Florit, Eugenio, Bertha Hernández, Jesús David Curbelo Rodríguez, and Virgilio López Lemus. Orbita de Eugenio Florit. El Vedado, Ciudad de la Habana: Ediciones Unión, 2003.

                                              Roberto Valero