Alba Carla Laurita de Céspedes was born in Rome on 11th March 1911, to Laura Bertini Alessandrini of Rome and Carlos Manuel de Céspedes y Quesada, ambassador for Cuba in Italy. Her grandfather was Carlos Manuel de Céspedes, a revolutionary who from 1869 to 1873 was president of the Cuban Republic and a proponent of the abolition of slavery.

When she was only 15 years old, in 1926, Alba married Roman Count Giuseppe Antamoro, only to separate from him in 1931.

The affluent and cultured environment in which she grew up fostered an education of excellence, nurturing her vocation for writing and interest in politics, with an anti-fascist orientation.

Although he was perfectly bilingual in Italian and Spanish, and knew several other European languages, he chose Italian as his predominant language for his literary production. He made his debut in 1935 with the publication of his first collection of poems, L’anima degli altri, fostered in part by his strong friendship with Arnoldo Mondadori. In 1938, however, she published her first novel, Nessuno torna indietro, with which she won the Viareggio Prize the following year, which, however, was revoked at Mussolini’s behest because of her anti-fascist militancy, which had also cost her several days in jail.

His writings were animated by careful stylistic care, striving for quality literature in which form was always accompanied by depth of content and deep reflection on ethical and social issues.

During World War II, he was an active part of the partisan resistance, operating under the battle name “Clorinda.”

Beginning in 1944, he founded and edited the journal Mercurio, which became an important point of reference for Italian intellectuality during the postwar years, thanks in part to the collaboration of distinguished pens. The magazine closed four years later, in 1948. From then on, de Céspedes began to collaborate with various newspapers, such as Epoca and La Stampa di Torino.

In the following years, between Rome, Cuba and Paris, she devoted herself intensively to writing, publishing numerous novels, often rich in autobiographical elements: sentimental dissatisfaction, female education and the struggle for personal and collective identification. Among her many titles are: Dalla parte di lei (1949), Quaderno proibito (1952), Prima e dopo (1955) and Il rimorso (1962).

His last work, which remained unfinished, is an autobiographical account written between the 1980s and 1990s, dedicated to Fidel Castro and the Cuban Revolution, published posthumously in 2011 by Mondadori to mark the centenary of his birth.

Alba de Céspedes died in Paris on 14th November 1997 after a long illness.

You can look up the birth certificate on the Ancestors Portal: Archivio di Stato di Roma, Stato civile italiano, Roma, 1911

The original is kept at the State Archives of Rome.

His personal archive (1876-1997), which consists of 136 envelopes, about 2100 photographs and 4122 books and pamphlets, is kept at the Fondazione Arnoldo e Alberto Mondadori.