Ана Роса Нуньес: Кубинско-американский поэт и библиотекарь

Cuban American poet and librarian

Ana Rosa Núñez (July 11, 1926 – August 2, 1999) was a Cuban American poet and librarian. She authored over two dozen books of poetry, prose, and translations.

Núñez was born in Havana, Cuba, to Dr. Jorge Manuel Núñez y Bengochea, a professor and architect, and Carmen Gónzalez y Gónzalez de Burgos. In 1949, she earned a scholarship from the Institute of International Education to attend the College of Wooster in the United States. In 1955, she graduated from the University of Havana with a library degree. In Cuba, she was head librarian of the National Audit Office (Tribunal de Cuentas de la Republica de Cuba, 1950 1961) and a founding member and vice president (1957 1959) of the Colegio Nacional de Bibliotecarios Universitarios. Núñez came to the United States on September 10, 1965. She and another Cuban exile librarian, Rosa M. Abella, were hired by the University of Miami's Otto G. Richter Library. There, she and other librarians helped build a significant collection of material involving Cuba and the Cuban exile community. In addition to traditional scholarly works, this included other publications and ephemera and significant donations such as notebooks, photographs, and the papers of the Cuban anthropologist Lydia Cabrera. Núñez published numerous books of poetry, literary criticism, and anthologies. She has been called one of the most outstanding of the group of Cuban poets born around 1930. She developed a particular interest in the Japanese haiku. She wrote a book of haiku in Spanish, Escamas del Caribe: Haikus de Cuba (1971), translated the work of American haiku authority Harold G. Henderson, and sent her haiku to the Emperor Hirohito on his birthday. She died in Mercy Hospital in Miami of a brain hemorrhage at the age of 73.