Aída Cartagena Portalatín

Who was Aída Cartagena Portalatín?

Aída Cartagena Portalatín was a Dominican prolific poet, fiction writer and essayist. She wrote in Spanish. Some of her work has been translated into English and other languages.

She was born in Moca, Dominican Republic, where she completed her elementary and secondary education. She is the daughter of Felipe Cartagena Hinojosa and Olimpia Portalatín. She later moved to the capital of the Dominican Republic where she earned her Doctorate in Humanities at the Universidad Autónoma de Santo Domingo. She did post-graduate studies in Paris.

In her early career, Cartagena Portalatín was part of the "poesía sorprendida" movement in the Dominican Republic.

Cartagena Portalatín stands out as a universal voice that nevertheless speaks from a particular location in the Caribbean that is often overlooked by the world's educated peoples. Her work was philosophical as well as historical, reflecting a broad worldview, that encompassed themes such as feminism, colonialism, imperialism, as well as current events contemporary to her times.