The objective was to make a study of Cuban traditional balladry using the result of recent field researches carried out by the Atlas, since this kind of study had been carried out on the basis of bibliographic sources published more than fifty years ago, and of small works carried out subsequently.

It is a definitive work that summarizes the knowledge gained on Cuban balladry in the 20th century. This scientific work has been made on the edge of oblivion, when the tradition of Cuban romance is still alive, but weakened by the pressure and almost single presence of décima espinela in the popular traditional poetry of the Archipelago.

Its importance is centered in the identity rescue and the fixation of texts and sources, of a tradition that dates from the own extra-American Cuban population, and that has gone with the identity process of the Nation from its emergence. Its scientist character is reinforced by a prologue-study, which is, at the same time, an essential monograph on the matter.

This exemplary volume, which is the result of the work of both researchers in addition to their scientific conclusions, astonish those that thought that romance was a dead matter in Cuba, and it is rescued from the memory of many informants who prove that it is a live tradition while it doesn't stray completely from popular memory. It overtakes the compilation work, for the considerable ammount of notes, footnotes, annexed explanations, comparison of texts' variants and the cumulus of erudite information abundant in the volume. It is an exceptional contribution to Cuban culture; one of those books which are unique in the century.