The Puerto Rican Literature Project

Estela Mangual de Cestero was born in 1865 in Mayagüez, Puerto Rico and died in 1911. She was musically trained in singing by Don Genaro de Aranzamendi. She performed in multiple venues, such as the Iglesia Parroquial, Casino de Mayagüez, Centro Hispano Ultramarino, and Círculo de Amigos. Mangual de Cestero published her first poem, “Santa Cecilia,” in a local newspaper. She also published work in La Mujer, a platform in Humacao, Puerto Rico, La Revista Blanca, and El Deber, in Caracas, Venezuela. In 1900, she became one of the first women to win a literary award in Puerto Rico in the Juegos Florales of Mayagüez with “Mi Antigua Gracia”. She also received an honorary diploma for her poem “Sombras.”

Works Cited

de Angelis, María Luisa. Mujeres puertorriqueñas, Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña, San Juan, Puerto Rico, 1908, p. 105.

La Revista Blanca: Periódico Literario y Artístico. Vol. 2, no, 17, 14 November 1894, Mayagüez, pp. 12-13, issuu.com/coleccionpuertorriquena/docs/revista_blanca_18971114.

Lechuga Jiménez, Miguel Ángel. Aportación bibliográfica a la literatura puertorriqueña desde 1898. 2007, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, 2007, PhD dissertation, p. 316, https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14352/56379.