Voyage to Havana

This thesis is a translation of Mercedes Santa Cruzy y Montalvo, Countess of Merlin’s Viaje a la Habana, published in Spanish in the early 1840s. Viaje a la Habana is composed of ten letters–seven of which appear in this translation–which detail the experiences of Merlin’s return to her native Cuba after an absence of forty years. Rich in natural imagery and astute in its observations about life in colonial Cuba, Merlin’s narrative expresses her position as a hybrid subject caught between the European world of letters and her origins as a criolla. This translation brings the text into English for the first time, and provides a critical introduction building on the Spanish edition of the text edited by Adriana Méndez Rodenas.