Queer Places:
Necrópolis Cristóbal Colón Havana, Municipio de La Habana Vieja, La Habana, Cuba

Alfonso Hernández Catá (June 24, 1885 - November 8, 1940) was a Cuban writer. In the 1920s writers more openly homosexual were not able to deal with the topic in their works. These include the conservative dramatist Jacinto Benavente (Nobel Prize, 1922), the chronicler of Madrid life Pedro de Répide, the short story writer Antonio de Hoyos y Vinent, and the music critic and historian Adolfo Salazar. Many Spaniards escaped to Paris, among them Gregorio and Marta Martinez Sierra and the composer Manuel de Falla. Little magazines, such as Grecia of Adriano del Valle, Mediodia of Joaquin Romero Murube, and Renacimiento of Martinez Sierra, remain incompletely studied. Even into the 1920's the situation for homosexuals was oppressive, as can be seen from the reticence of the Espasa-Calpe encyclopedia and the comments of Gregorio Maranon. It was foreigners living in Spain, the Uruguayan Alberto Nin Frías (Marcos, amador de la belleza, 1913; Alexis o el significado del temperamento urano, 1932; Homosexual-ismo creador, 1933), the Chilean Augusto d'Halmar (Pasion y muerte del cura Deusto, 1924), and the Cuban Alfonso Hernández Catá (El angel de Sodoma, 1928) who published the first books on the topic.

Born on June 24, 1885 in Aldeadávila . Son of a soldier of the Spanish army and a Cuban. At the age of sixteen he entered the College of Military Orphans of Toledo . He escaped from school and settled in Madrid . He was a cabinetmaker apprentice while studying French, English, literature, psychology, history and translating books. He published his first book, Cuentos pasionales (Passionate Tales), in 1907.

Other important works are: Pelayo González , Don Cayetano el informal (Don Cayetano the informal), Novela erótica (Erotic novel), Manicomio (Madhouse), Los frutos ácidos (Acid fruits), Los siete pecados (The seven sins), El placer de sufrir (The pleasure of suffering), El corazón (The heart), Piedras preciosas (Precious stones), El ángel de Sodoma (The angel of Sodom), La voluntad de Dios (The will of God), Sus mejores cuentos (His best stories), Scale (Escala).

In Havana he runs the newspapers El Diario de la Marina and La discusión (Debate). In 1909 he was consul at Le Havre. Later he was in Birmingham, Santander, Alicante, Madrid and Lisbon, and ambassador in Madrid, Panama, Chile and Brazil, where he died in a plane crash when he was flying over the Botafogo Bay in Rio de Janeiro, on November 8, 1940.

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