Fernando Ortiz on Music: Selected Writing on Afro-Cuban Culture

Fernando Ortiz (1881–1969) is recognized as one of the most influential Latin American authors of the twentieth century. Although he helped establish the field of Afro-diasporic studies, his writings are still relatively unknown to the English-speaking world. In Fernando Ortiz on Music, accomplished ethnomusicologist Robin Moore has collected and translated an essential selection of Ortiz’s publications. These essays on Afro-Cuban expressive culture, music and dance are now available for the first time in English.

Ortiz’s writings are accompanied by an extended introduction that contextualizes the author’s life, intellectual influences, and collaborators as well as his fieldwork and interviews. Fernando Ortiz on Music also charts the writer’s changing views of black heritage through the years. This comprehensive anthology, which includes examples of his early scholarship as well as publications from the 1940s and ’50s, extends the life and legacy of this important and under-known scholar of Latin American and Caribbean music. 

Contributors include: David Garcia, Sarah Lahasky, Cary Peñate, Susan Thomas, and the editor