Ana Galdós Betancourt

Camaguey, Cuba, 1913 – Fairfield, Iowa, 2011

She was a Cuban artist and writer who lived in Cuba, France and the United States of America. Ana Galdós was a descendant of Benito Pérez Galdós, one the most famous 19th-century Spanish writers. His cousin Domingo Antonio de Galdós y Mesa was Ana Galdós’s grandfather.[1]

Biography

Ana Galdós Betancourt was born in Camaguey, Cuba on September 12th, 1913. She is the daughter of Domingo Galdós y María Betancourt.

She studied in a school “Los Dominicos” until she transferred to St. Anne Episcopal School in Charlottesville VA. She continued her education at Notre Dame, Staten Island NY, and completed her education in Sacred Heart School (Colegio del Sagrado Corazón) in Havana. She was also a gifted artist and poet. Her poems appeared in different magazines where she also collaborated with articles. In the 1940’s she married Alfredo de Armas Aramburu. She divorced years later and on September 8th, 1950, she married Augusto Echavarri-Aragón.

She moved to France, where she lived from 1959 to 1960 and she then returned to Cuba, where she lived for about year.

In 1964 she graduated from Colegio Garcés in Miami with a degree in Journalism. In Fort Lauderdale she was appointed artistic director of the magazine Sun Colony, where she worked until 1968. She also collaborated with The Boulevard Magazine (1974) Sun/Soles (bilingual magazine founded in 1969), Unidad Latina (1971) and News/Noticias.[2] Also in Fort Lauderdale, she taught at Prospect Hall College (1975) and then she founded her own school, Bilingual Studio I (1980-1989). After spending a year in Baton Rouge, LA, she moved to Fairfield, Iowa in 1990 where she spent her time writing poems and stories.

Bibliography

Ana Galdós is the author of Chaos and Beyond: Where The Realms of Myth and Realism Meet[3] and she is co-author with her son Frederick A. De Armas of the novel El abra del Yumurí.[4] She published “Time speaks” (1991) and “White Blue and Green” (1992) in an anthology entitled Perceptions (volumes 2 and 3). From 1993 is her poem “A silent oration” published in the anthology Wind in the Night´s Sky. The poem received the Editor´s Choice Award. In 1995 she published “I hear voices out there” in Best Poems of 1995. Her monography Chaos and Beyond was published in London in 1999.

Artistic Work

When she was on her nineties and in an assisted living facility in Fairfield, IA, she decided to start painting again and in 2007, her painting “Flowers from Fred” won the first place at the Iowa Health Care Assistance (IHCA) ICAL “Art from the Heart Resident Art Contest” [5] 

Among her awards and distinctions are International Woman of the Year (1992), Shield of Valor Medal for Services to Humanity (1992); Editor´s Choice Award for Outstanding Achievement, National Library of Poetry (1993); Fellow, the World Literary Academy (1993).

International Woman of the Year (1992)

References

  1. ^ De Armas, Frederick A. “Una rama de la familia Galdós en Cuba: genealogía e influencia,” Galdós y la gran novela del siglo XIX. IX Congreso Internacional Galdosiano. Eds. Yolanda Arencibia and Rosa María Quintana. Gran Canaria: Ediciones del Cabildo de Gran Canaria, 2011: p. 787. [1]
  2. ^ Publisher´s Letter, Letter of the Editor (April 2015). “50 Years Of History”. Gold Coast Fort Lauderdale Daily. Retrieved 7 Feb 2019.
  3. ^ Galdós-Bethencourt,, Ana, Chaos and Beyond: Where The Realms of Myth and Realism Meet. Atlanta, Londres y Sydney: Minerva Press, 1999., Atlanta, Londres y Sydney: Minerva Press, 1999., ISBN 0754105601, retrieved 2019-02-07
  4. ^ De Armas, Frederick A. (2016). El abra del Yumurí. Un manuscrito de Ana Galdós. Madrid: Verbum Editorial. pp. 1–2. ISBN 9788490744024.
  5. ^ http://news.iowahealthcare.org/ihcabltn/textonly/2007-12-10.html