By Katherine Rojas - Florida Catholic
Photographer: COURTESY PHOTO
The cover illustration of Sonia Behar's novel about the life of Cuban priest-composer Esteban de Salas is a watercolor painting by St. Brendan alumna Laura Manuela Quesada.
MIAMI | Sonia Behar, St. Brendan High School teacher, college professor and author, has written a historical novel about Esteban de Salas, a little-known priest and composer who is considered by many as the father of Cuban sacred and Baroque music.
The book, “Por la Senda del Olvido,” which was released last year by Editorial Son Sin Clave, centers on de Salas, a Baroque composer in 18th century Cuba. His work was highly underrated throughout his life, but the impact he left on Cuban music was an immense one.
The book’s cover is a watercolor painting by St. Brendan High School alumna Laura Manuela Quesada called “Recuerdo de lo Olvidado” (Remembrance of the Forgotten). It depicts de Salas on his “road,” or life, leaving behind his music, which is what is left of him, for heaven.
The message behind the illustration came from the sonnet which inspired the title: Even though he was alone throughout most of his life, de Salas found partnership with God after his death.
Behar’s choice of protagonist was influenced by her fellow St. Brendan teacher, Alberto Martinez-Ramos. He suggested she write about de Salas because of his influence on Cuban culture and music.
Five years ago, when she first began to compile evidence and historical anecdotes on the priest, Behar realized the information was limited, since very few people actually knew about him.
She frequented the University of Miami library’s Cuban Heritage Collection, the Cuban Research Institute at FIU, reached out to contacts in Cuba, and scoured the Internet to find more information on the priest and the time period in which he lived.
“I had to do a lot of research because I had to put myself in the time period which was very difficult to do,” she said. “It was not just what was happening historically; it was the way people spoke, the way people dressed, what things were called, the materials that were used to make things.”
In the novel, Behar combines factual events found in history books with a reimagined life for the priest.
“One of the things that was most intriguing to me was that even though he was a priest, he was not ordained until he was 65,” Behar said. “No one knew why, but I used that as the question to recreate a different life that was not really his.”
Photographer: COURTESY PHOTO
St. Brendan High School Spanish teacher Sonia Behar's third novel is a historically based reimagining of the life of Cuban priest-composer Esteban de Salas, who although little known is considered the father of Cuban sacred and Baroque music.
Behar began teaching Advanced Placement Spanish language and literature at St. Brendan High School in 1995. In 2004, she pursued a PhD from the University of Miami in Spanish literature. Afterwards, she taught Spanish at FIU and French at UM before coming back to St. Brendan in 2009.
She is of Cuban heritage and Spanish is her first language, which influences her work tremendously. She has written five books — this is her third novel — but the inspiration to write first came from a friend.
“It’s always been somebody else telling me, because I never knew that I could write anything,” she said. “The first time I wrote something, it was because a friend of mine told me that I should write a book about a person who goes back to his country and finds that things are not the way he imagined them.”
That became her first novel, “Regreso a Mi Son Sin Clave.” Her other works include a collection of short stories and anecdotes from her town in Cuba, and her academic dissertation, which focused on research about literature itself.
The book on de Salas was released with an author signing event at Books & Books in Coral Gables last September, and can be purchased on Amazon.
