Dulce María Loynaz Muñoz (Havana, Cuba; 10 December 1902 – 27 April 1997) was a Cuban poet, and is considered one of the principal figures of Cuban literature. She was awarded the Miguel de Cervantes Prize in 1992. She earned her Doctorate in Civil Law at University of Havana in 1927. Early life Dulce María Loynaz was the daughter of the famous General Enrique Loynaz del Castillo, a hero of the Cuban Liberation Army and author of the lyrics of the march theme, "El Himno Invasor", and sister of poet Enrique Loynaz Muñoz. Dulce María was born in Havana, Cuba on December 10, 1902, to a family of great sensibility towards artistic and cultural manifestations and deep patriotic feelings. Homeschooled as a child, Loynaz grew up in a familiar environment highly propitious for poetry. Although Loynaz had a sheltered childhood, her early adulthood was much more adventurous, including experiences available at that time only to wealthy young women, even outside of Cuba. She published a number of poems in her teens and twenties. Education She completed the Doctorate of Civil Law at the University of Havana in 1927, but rarely practiced law, and stopped practicing altogether in 1961 out of dislike. She was able to travel widely. In addition, her talents and her family's social position brought her into personal contact with some of the major Spanish-language authors of the century, including Spanish author Federico García Lorca, Chilean poet Gabriela Mistral who won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1945, Cuban author Alejo Carpentier, and the Spanish writer Juan Ramón Jiménez who won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1956. Publications and Poetry Loynaz published her first poems in La Nación in 1920. She traveled extensively including to Turkey, Syria, Libya, Palestine, and Egypt. Loynaz also visited Mexico in 1937 and various countries in South America from 1946-47, and the Canary Islands in 1947 and 1951 where she as declared adoptive daughter. Loynaz began writing Jardin in 1928 and completed the novel in 1935, shortly after Cuban women obtained the right to vote. During these early decades of the twentieth century, a time of great feminist activity, a dynamic and effective women's movement flourished in Cuba, and women's rights became part of the Cuban political consciousness. The feminist attitude Loynaz displays in Jardin is tied strongly to the image of the city. The novel begins and ends with the heroine