This is one of the very few books on the Cuban political thinker and poet Jose Martí available in English. Written by renowned Latin Americanists, the book explores the man who created the notion of Latin America--Nuestra America--(also the title of Martí's seminal text) as a distinct cultural and racial identity. Martí's influence as a writer in Latin America was almost as great as the one he had as a statesman. An extraordinarily innovative poet and prose writer, he contributed effectively to modernizing Latin American literature, linguistically and thematically. One hundred years after Martí's death, Re-reading Jose Martí (1853-1895) re-evaluates his contribution to Latin America's literature and political evolution.

Through his journalistic writings Martí was tremendously influential in shaping the notion of a distinct Latin America as well as in predicting the United States' imperialistic tendencies regarding those countries. Revered in Cuba, Martí, more than any other patriot, stirred nationalistic feelings necessary to organize the war that finally secured Cuba's independence from Spain.

Contributors include Ottmar Ette, Cathy L. Jrade, Julio Ramos, Susana Rotker, Lourdes Martinez-Echazabal, Enrico Mario Santi, Rafael Saumell-Munoz, Ivan A. Schulman, and Adalberto Ronda Varona.