Santa Cruz y Montalvo was born into an aristocratic Creole Cuban family in Havana before moving to Madrid and, later, Paris. When she returned to Havana she wrote a novel about her travels, as well as two historical accounts of Cuba.
Like any other biography, La Belle Creole: The Cuban Countess Who Capitvated Havana, Madrid and Paris required a lot of research. “The responsibility was big to make this biography because you are writing a whole novel about someone’s life to teach people everything about that one person. You need to be careful when presenting the information,” Garcia-Lapuerta said.
“I would like people to learn a bit about that time and history [in Cuba] and I want them to learn about Mercedes’s life,” Garcia-Lapuerta said.