New York ? An oversized statue at the entrance to Central Park freezes the moment Jose Marti entered the pantheon of Latin American independence heroes, rearing back on his horse, frock coat flapping, as Spanish bullets strike his body.

His battlefield death, 110 years ago in Cuba, left him in high demand as a martyr. The U.S. government broadcasts pro-democracy messages in his name to Cuba through “Radio Marti.” On the island, the regime has invoked him so widely that he has been nicknamed “the statue.”

Yet he was also a writer – a prolific poet and journalist whose chronicles of American life during his 15 years of exile in New York City have been compared to the work of much better known 19th-century European commentators such as Alexis de Tocqueville.

Two recent books, a novel and a translation of selected writings, have introduced other dimensions of a man long overshadowed by his contested political legacy.

“The Divine Husband,” the latest novel by Francisco Goldman, explores the details of Marti’s turbulent private life. The figure revered for selfless devotion to Cuban independence emerges as a charismatic ladies’ man, breaking hearts throughout the Americas during his exile imposed by the Spanish colonial government.

Inspired by a love poem that has fueled speculation Marti fathered a child out-of-wedlock, the novel introduces him through a young Guatemalan woman who takes a college literature course from him and falls in love. After he departs, she follows his career from afar, cringing at rumors of his many lovers while marveling at his newspaper dispatches from New York.

Focusing on details not covered by the official biography, Goldman said he felt intimidated researching the saintlike figure in Cuba.

“There’s still a tedious effort to uphold Marti’s image, but among younger scholars there is an interest in the person more than just the political martyr,” he said. “His life was so screwed up in so many ways, you just have to laugh.”

Such is the influence of Marti’s political writing and personal sacrifice on the island today that he is remembered as Cuba’s greatest author as well as a founding father of the nation. His statue stands outside nearly every elementary school, and youngsters study him as part of a triumvirate of national heroes that include President Fidel Castro and guerrilla leader Che Guevara.

While inescapable in his homeland, Marti is hardly known in the United States, where he coordinated the Cuban independence movement from exile until returning to the island and dying at age 42 in his first taste of combat on May 19, 1895.

The first English translation of a comprehensive survey of his work recently appeared in “Jose Marti: Selected Writings,” a Penguin Classic volume translated by Esther Allen. Allen said one challenge was choosing material from the poetry, journalism and political essays collected in his 27-volume “Complete Works.”

The chronicles from New York form the heart of the book. Full of admiration and criticism of U.S. culture and government, mixing reportage with poetry, they narrate events including the assassination of President James Garfield and the opening of the Brooklyn Bridge.

Perhaps most familiar to American readers is Marti’s poem that gave the lyrics to the Cuban folk song “Guantanamera,” made popular in the United States by Pete Seeger in the 1960s. In translation, the opening verses of the poem read: “I am an honest man / From where the palm tree grows, / And I want, before I die, / to cast these verses from my soul.”

For all the time Marti spent in New York – more than half his adult life – both Goldman and Allen were surprised by his lack of recognition. He set up Spanish-language newspapers and taught classes, living in several different Brooklyn and Manhattan neighborhoods. But most of the buildings associated with him have been demolished without a plaque about Marti left behind.

“It’s scandalous,” Goldman said. “I guess it has something to do with the way people have been seen in Latin America. Fifty years from now, Americans will look at him like de Tocqueville, as one of our great foreign writers.”