Cuba: A Traveler's Literary Companion

by Ann Louise Bardach (Editor)

Overview

Travel to Cuba in the company of its finest writers and gain an understanding of its remarkable mystique. The twenty-one stories in this collection — some of which appear in English for the first time — will take you on an odyssey through the country's rich past to its dynamic present, where it is poised at the brink of immense change. Arranged by the areas of Cuba they illuminate, these stories offer up a rich literary banquet. Contributors include Luis Aguilar León, María Eugenia Alegría Nuñez, Uva de Aragón, Reinaldo Arenas, Richard Blanco, Lino Novás Calvo, Calvert Casey, Alfonso Hernández Catá, Josefina de Diego, Abilio Estévez, Leonardo Padura Fuentes, Cristina Garcia, Pedro Juan Gutiérrez, José Lezama Lima, Pablo Medina, Ana Menéndez, Ernesto Mestre, Mayra Montero, Achy Obejas, Senel Paz, Antonio José Ponte, and Zoé Valdés.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781883513115
Publisher:	Whereabouts Press
Publication date:	03/01/2002
Series:	Traveler's Literary Companions
Edition description:	Translatio
Pages:	256
Product dimensions:	5.00(w) x 7.25(h) x (d)

Table of Contents

	Map	vi
	Preface	xi
	Havana
	Havanasis	1
	Strawberry and Chocolate	3
	Paradiso	15
	In the Cold of the Malecon	24
	Life on the Rooftops	28
	My Aunt Leocadia, Love, and the Lower Paleolithic	35
	Internal Monologue on a Corner in Havana	51
	My Heroic Birth	56
	The Dark Night of Ramon Yendia	61
	Mascaras	96
	Thine Is the Kingdom	106
	The Messenger	117
	Playas Del Este
	Ocean Blue	126
	Matanzas Province
	The Girl Typist Who Worked for a Provincial Ministry of Culture	133
	Zapata	137
	Her Mother's House	142
	El Campo
	Don Cayetano, the Unreliable	165
	Trinidad
	Not the Truth, Not a Lie	176
	Holguin
	Old Rosa	183
	Guantanamo
	The Lazarus Rumba	191
	Life, Exile, and Death
	The Prophet	205
	We Came All the Way from Cuba So You Could Dress Like This?	209
	Contributors	225

Editorial Reviews

The eighth in this engaging international series offers 22 short stories and excerpts from longer works, several previously unavailable in English. There are perhaps too many of the latter (novels by Jose Lezama Lima and Reinaldo Arenas seem particularly un-excerptable), though it's good to be pointed toward excellent recent books by Ernesto Mestre, Abilio Estevez, and Pedro Juan Gutierrez. The stories are generally superior-notably Lino Novas Calvo's thriller-like "The Dark Night of Ramon Yendia," Ana Menendez's plaintive "Her Mother's House," and the ultimate assimilation story: "We Came All the Way from Cuba So You Could Dress Like This?," by Achy Obejas (a witty, serious farce that's every bit as good as its title). On balance, a worthy addition to a splendid series.

Kirkus Reviews