LENTILS AND WOLVES

HISTORY AND FICTION IN PIRACY OF THE CARIBBEAN

Abstract

This article analyzes representations of piracy in the narrative of Silvestre de Balboa. The oeuvre Espejo de paciéncia tells about the kidnaping of Spanish bishop Cabezas Altamirano in Cuba by French privateers. The Canarian poet who lived in Porto Príncipe records the saga of the religious man and the murder of the corsair Gilbert Girón. It is an epic poem considered the “founder” of Cuban literature and one of the only remaining records of the colonial period about the piracy in the Caribbean Sea. Similarly, this text analyzes the contemporary reverberations in Caribbean literature of piracy through the oeuvres of Antonio Benitez Rojo and Zoé Valdés. In addition, reflections about the Maritime Culture in the colonial context of the island of Cuba, an island of the Antillean Archipelago, and also the impact of this issue in the current Cuban literature are brought in this article.