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Darío Espina Pérez (October 25, 1920 – September 6, 1996) was a Cuban banker, agricultural engineer, lawyer, writer, and the founder and president of La Academia Poética de Miami, a literary society established in 1989.


Biography

Pérez was born in
Limonar Limonar is a municipality and town in the Matanzas Province of Cuba. Overview The municipality is divided into the barrios of Canímar, Guamacaro, Caoba, Sumidero, Coliseo, and San Miguel. Established in 1876 as ''Guamacaro'', the name was chan ...
,
Matanzas Matanzas (Cuban ; ) is the capital of the Cuban province of Matanzas Province, Matanzas. Known for its poets, culture, and Afro-American religions, Afro-Cuban folklore, it is located on the northern shore of the island of Cuba, on the Bay of Mat ...
,
Cuba Cuba, officially the Republic of Cuba, is an island country, comprising the island of Cuba (largest island), Isla de la Juventud, and List of islands of Cuba, 4,195 islands, islets and cays surrounding the main island. It is located where the ...
, on October 25, 1920, to a family dedicated to
beekeeping Beekeeping (or apiculture, from ) is the maintenance of bee colonies, commonly in artificial beehives. Honey bees in the genus '' Apis'' are the most commonly kept species but other honey producing bees such as '' Melipona'' stingless bees are ...
, Espina went on to author nearly forty technical and literary books and to co-author several more, all edited in collaboration with his wife, Hilda Díaz Espina. His writing received a number of awards, including the Premio Garcilaso de la Vega in 1995, given by the Instituto de Cultura Peruana for his poem ''La Naturaleza.'' In 1995 Espina was recognized as the teacher of the decade by the Cuadratura del Círculo Poético Iberoamericano in commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the death of José Martí. He received his elementary education in public schools and through exams received a scholarship from the Ministry of Agriculture to study to become an agricultural sciences teacher in the Álvaro Reynoso Principal Agricultural School in
Colón, Cuba Colón is a municipality and city in the Matanzas Province of Cuba. The municipality has an area of and a population of about 68,021. The city proper, with a population of about 44,000, is the third-largest of its province. History The town was ...
. After earning a bachelor of science degree, he attended the Faculty of Agricultural Engineering at the University of Havana, where he graduated with the degree of Agricultural Engineer in Sugar Chemistry. He later returned to the University of Havana to earn his law degree. Espina's activities in Cuba were centered on the banking and agriculture industries. He was part of the accounting department at the Banco Continental Cubano, chief of construction for the Public Works Ministry's "Via Blanca" project, a math professor at the Álvaro Reynoso Provincial Agricultural School, and an inspector at the Provincial Schools of Agriculture; he also held various posts at the Banco de Fomento Agricola e Industrial, was consultant and deputy administrator at the Banco Núñez in Havana, manager of a branch of the Banco de la Construcción, professor and Dean of the Faculty of Agricultural Engineers of the University of Havana, professor in the Faculty of Law of the
University of Pinar del Río A university () is an institution of tertiary education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. ''University'' is derived from the Latin phrase , which roughly means "community of teachers and scholars" ...
, chief of the appraisal department at the National Institute of Agrarian Reform in 1959, and, finally, officer of the Banco Nacional de Cuba until he left Cuba in 1961 during a scientific congress in Spain. In 1961, Espina was granted asylum in the United States. Outside of Cuba, Espina continued to be an active professional through his position beginning in 1962 as sector specialist, consultant, and project manager with the Interamerican Development Bank (IDB) in Washington, D.C. Espina worked and lived in various countries in Latin America, including Honduras, the Dominican Republic, Venezuela, Ecuador, Haiti, and Costa Rica. In 1981, Espina retired from the IDB and settled in Miami, Florida, with his wife, lawyer Hilda Díaz Espina, and their three children, physicians Hilda Tejero and Darío M. Espina and management and information technology specialist Carlos Espina. He died in Miami on September 6, 1996.


Works or publications

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Awards and recognitions

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Notes and references


Further reading

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External links

* Th
Darío Espina Pérez papers
are available at th
Cuban Heritage CollectionUniversity of Miami Libraries
This archival collection documents the professional activities of Darío Espina Pérez in his capacity as poet, lawyer, agricultural engineer, historian, literary critic, and founder and president of La Academia Poética de Miami. {{DEFAULTSORT:Espina Perez, Dario 1920 births 1996 deaths Cuban emigrants to the United States Cuban exiles Cuban male writers 20th-century Cuban lawyers Exiles of the Cuban Revolution in the United States