Uniting Blacks in a Raceless Nation

The Cuban writer Nicols Guilln has traditionally been considered a poet of mestizaje, a term that, whilst denoting racial mixture, also refers to a homogenizing nationalist discourse that proclaims the harmonious nature of Cuban identity. Yet, many aspects of Guillns work enhance black Cuban and Afro-Cuban identities. Miguel Arnedo-Gmez explores this paradox in Guillns pre-Cuban Revolution writings placing them alongside contemporaneous intellectual discourses that feigned adherence to the homogenizing ideology whilst upholding black interests. On the basis of links with these and other 1930s Cuban discourses, Arnedo-Gmez shows Guillns work to contain a message of black unity aimed at the black middle classes. Furthermore, against a tendency to seek a single authorial consciousnessbe it mulatto or based on a North American construction of blacknessGuillns prose and poetry are also characterized as a struggle for a viable identity in a socio-culturally heterogeneous society.