Translated by David Font-Navarrete, El Monte: Notes on the Religions, Magic, and Folklore of the Black and Creole People of Cuba (Duke University Press Books, May 2023) is the highly anticipated translation of Lydia Cabrera’s foundational study of Afro-Cuban religious practices and traditions. [Cover art features a diptych by Cuban artist José Bedia: “Animal armado y madre de la guerra.”]

Solimar Otero (professor of folklore in the Department of Folklore and Ethnomusicology at Indiana University and author of Archives of Conjure: Stories of the Dead in Afrolatinx Cultures) describes the book: “David Font-Navarrete’s translation of Lydia Cabrera’s classic study, El Monte, fills a major gap in works about Afro-Cuban religions available in English. Readers will enjoy the erudite additions of John F. Szwed and Robert F. Thompson’s foreword and Isabel Castellanos’s introduction to this long-awaited volume. Cabrera’s unique voice shines through, offering the knowledge and wit of Afro-Cuban religious practitioners to a new generation. The volume is a testament to the complexity and richness of Cuban folklore.”

Description: First published in Cuba in 1954 and appearing here in English for the first time, Lydia Cabrera’s El Monte is a foundational and iconic study of Afro-Cuban religious and cultural traditions. Drawing on conversations with elderly Afro-Cuban priests who were one or two generations away from the transatlantic slave trade, Cabrera combines ethnography, history, folklore, literature, and botany to provide a panoramic account of the multifaceted influence of Afro-Atlantic cultures in Cuba. Cabrera details the natural and spiritual landscape of the Cuban monte (forest, wilderness) and discusses hundreds of herbs and the constellations of deities, sacred rites, and knowledge that envelop them. The result is a complex spiritual and medicinal architecture of Afro-Cuban cultures. This new edition of what is often referred to as “the Santería bible” includes a new foreword, introduction, and translator notes. As a seminal work in the study of the African diaspora that has profoundly impacted numerous fields, Cabrera’s magnum opus is essential for scholars, activists, and religious devotees of Afro-Cuban traditions alike.

Lydia Cabrera (1899–1991) was a renowned Cuban writer, folklorist, and artist who wrote dozens of books documenting Afro-Cuban culture and religion.

David Font-Navarrete is Assistant Professor in the Department of Music, Multimedia, Theatre, and Dance at Lehman College, City University of New York.

For more information, see https://www.dukeupress.edu/el-monte