Piñera, Humberto, 1911-1986

Piñera, Humberto, 1911-1986

Humberto Piñera Llera (1911-1986) was a Cuban author, philosopher, and educator.

Born in Cárdenas, Cuba, in 1911, Llera was the oldest son of Juan Manuel Piñera and María Cristina Llera and brother of the recognized writer Virgilio Piñera. During his professional life in Cuba, he served as a professor of philosophy at the University of Havana from 1946 to 1960. Dr. Piñera was a founding member of the Cuban Society of Philosophy and the PEN Club of Cuba. He was named Academician of the National Academy of Arts and Letters of Cuba and a Member of Honor of the Argentinian Society of Philosophy, and served as editor for the Revista Cubana de Filosofía (Cuban Journal of Philosophy).

Piñera was exiled to the United States in 1961, where he took on a professorship in Hispanic and Spanish literature at New York University (NYU) and acted as resident director of NYU’s program in Spain. He served as a visiting professor at Columbia University in New York and Middlebury College in Vermont, while also lecturing at important cultural centers in North and South America throughout his career. An accomplished writer, Piñera authored countless journal articles and books, most famously Idea, sentimiento y sensibilidad de José Martí(1982) and Sartre y su idea de la libertad (posthumous, 1989). After his retirement from NYU, he taught at Miami-Dade Community College and Biscayne College in Miami. Piñera died in Miami, Florida in 1986.