José Martí

He is probably the only writer more popular in Cuba than Hemingway. But he is relatively unknown in the US. he died in 1895, and as you might expect, his writing is a bit dated now, but more by topic than by flourish. Who writes essays about Buffalo Bill anymore? Today he's remembered more for his political writing. Martí was killed in battle against Spanish troops at the Battle of Dos Ríos. His death propelled the issue of Cuban independence, at the time from Spain but he continued to be embraced later in the revolution against Batista. His non-political writing is worth remembering.  (It's all public domain now, no reason to buy a print copy if you have an e-reader)

I quote here 2 sentences from an essay he wrote about Coney Island in New York.It reveals a revolutionary who was also awed by the scope and hustle of our largest city.

"It is a world full of stars, with Orchestras, dancing, merriment, surf sounds, human sounds, choruses of laughter, gentle breezes, barkers chanting, swift carriages, swifter trains, until the hour comes to go home. Then like a monster that vomits its contents into the hungry maw of another monster, that colossal crowd, that straining, crushing mass, forces it's way onto trains, which speed across the wastes, groaning under their burden, until they surrender it to the tremendous steamers, enlived by the sound of harps and violins, which take up the holiday throng, convey it to the piers, and debouch the weary merrymakers into the spread through slumbering New York like veins of steel."