Winner of Spain's prestigious Alfaguara Prize in Fiction, Caracol Beach is a gripping, kaleidoscopic novel about isolation, love, fear, and the collision of strangers' lives on one fateful night in a Florida town. On the outskirts of the quiet resort community of Caracol Beach, its unlikeliest--and perhaps most dangerous--resident plots his own demise. A Cuban veteran of the war in Angola, the sole survivor of an ambush that killed off the rest of his platoon, Beto Milanés has for eighteen years been racked with guilt and grief and tormented by terrible visions. Determined to end his suffering but unable to take his own life, he sets out to find someone who will do it for him. So begins a night of madness, violence, and, ultimately, redemption. Drawn into the soldier's nightmare world are an improbable group of men and women, whose lives will never again be the same: an aging police chief with a penchant for pizza; a foulmouthed prostitute; a transvestite with a killer judo chop; a beautiful student haunted by her own ghosts; and two ill-fated would-be heroes. With audacity, humor, and deep insight into the human condition, Eliseo Alberto explores the horror of war, the pain of exile, the power of forgiveness, and the inescapable, sometimes cruel toll of destiny. The story that unfolds is at once shocking and comic, surprising and poignant, evoking classic tragedy and the absurdity of modern life. Combining the narrative power of a master storyteller with the phantasmagoric vision of a filmmaker, Eliseo Alberto has created a literary tour de force.

Caracol Beach

Literature & Fiction

Alberto, Eliseo

Contemporary

KNOPF

Eliseo Alberto's award-winning Caracol Beach combines the passionate imagination of magic realism with the plotting of a thriller (and a modicum of farce). The result is a literary tour de force. Beto Milanes, the night watchman at a graveyard in the Florida resort town of Caracol Beach, is a guilt-ridden Cuban war veteran. Tormented by memories and hallucinations, he yearns to die but is unable to take his own life. Instead, he decides to force someone-anyone-to kill him. That decision sets in motion a night of violence that draws an odd assortment of characters into Beto's orbit. In scenes that range from the jungles of Angola to a seedy Florida bar, Alberto explores war, madness, exile, and the redemptive power of love. Translated by Edith Grossman.

Caracol Beach: A Novel

Vintage

Die Geschichte von Jose.

Rowohlt Tb.

Es un sábado del mes de junio y Beto Milanés, emigrante de origen cubano, sale a buscar a alguien que lo mate. Al frente de la comisaría está un sargento calvo y obeso, que ha decidido pedirle perdón a su único hijo, Mandy, el travestí. El fantasma de un pianista vuela de un lado a otro, tratando de salvar a su hija. Un profesor de literatura se pasa la noche conversando con la mujer más linda del mundo. Los orishas africanos descienden del Olimpo y acuden con sus tambores. Tres muchachos van por cerveza a un supermercado, para seguir la fiesta, y se cruzan en la autopista con el cubano que quiere una tumba. Caracol Beach es una novela espléndida y terrible un mosaico de impecable traza, donde cada situación encaja en todo un juego de sentimientos y donde nada, a fin de cuentas, es evitable. Una novela sobre la locura, el miedo, el perdón y la muerte.
ENGLISH DESCRIPTION
A crazed Cuban veteran, unable to commit suicide, goes in search of someone to do the deed for him. Original and rich in character development, precise and musical in its language, Caracol Beach is a novel readers cannot put down.

Caracol Beach (Spanish Edition)

Alfaguara

«La amistad también es un romance.» El anciano tipógrafo habanero Lino Catalá ha pasado un año sin Maruja. Viudo, serio, formal, incontinente, se encuentra con Larry Po, alias Arístides Antúnez, alias Lucas Vasallo, alias... De ese encuentro surge una extraordinaria jornada por una Habana real y ficticia, y también por los recovecos de la memoria y de lo que creemos saber acerca de los demás. Lino irá conociendo la doble vida de su difunta mujer: en el día, una aplicada ama de casa; por la noche, un ardorosa cantante de boleros. También acompañará a Larry en su viaje sentimental, en busca de Esther Rodenas, la mujer que amó como solamente una vez en la vida se ama. En esta íntima novela, Eliseo Alberto ata al pasado con el presente y al amor con la amistad. También muestra que, más que un lánguido declive, la vejez también es un principio.

Esther en alguna parte / Esther Somewhere (Spanish Edition)

Literary

«Entonces papá tendrá pruebas de cuánto se le extraña aún en aquella casona de Arroyo Naranjo, la nuestra, de La Habana, una posesión de la memoria que comienza a derrumbarse ladrillo a ladrillo, dejando una montañita de polvo en la palma de unas oscuras manos —las del olvido.»Este es un libro íntimo, lleno de nostalgia y de ternura. También es un libro doblemente póstumo. Eliseo Diego murió en México en 1994; varios años después, su hija Fefé encontró en su casa de La Habana las primeras páginas de lo que sería la primera novela del insigne poeta. Una obra datada cincuenta años antes de que muriera, que llegó a manos de su hijo, Eliseo Alberto, quien se propuso terminarla, pero la muerte también lo alcanzó pronto. La novela de Eliseo Diego, apenas un inicio, es la obra de un poeta: las palabras pesan más que los acontecimientos. Y este libro, la obra de Eliseo Alberto entretejida en torno a la de su padre, es un híbrido. Eliseo Alberto supo llevar su prosa al lugar justo donde el dolor por la muerte de su padre más lo necesitaba. La crónica tiene la belleza de la fatalidad. El resto,las viñetas de La Habana y la poesía, llevan al lector a vericuetos del alma donde es imposible no sonreír. ENGLISH DESCRIPTION "Now dad will have proof of how much he is missed in that big old house in Arroyo Naranjo, Havana. There are small pieces of memories that begin to crumble brick by brick, just like the house, leaving only dust of those memories." This is a very intimate book, warm and nostalgic. It is also doubly posthumous. Eliseo Diego died in Mexico in 1994; several years later, his daughter Fefe found the first pages of what would be the first novella ever written by the famous poet. A work that had been dated fifty years before his death, and that later made its way into the hands of his son, the writer Eliseo Alberto. He vowed to finish his father’s piece, but for him, death also came first. The novel by Eliseo Diego, if only a beginning, had the mastery of a poet: words meant more than events. This book by Eliseo Alberto, woven together with that of his father’s, is a type of fusion. Eliseo Alberto used his prose to heal the pain for the loss of his father. The poetry and anecdotes of Havana, take the reader through a journey of the soul where it is impossible not to be happy

La novela de mi padre / My Father’s Novel (Spanish Edition)

Genre Fiction

A profoundly personal and painful study of the impact of communism. The author courageously evokes how he and his family started out as strong supporters of the Cuban Revolution. They slowly became disillusioned until they began questioning whether what they had undergone was at all worthwhile.

Informe contra mi mismo

Biographies & Memoirs

Eliseo Alberto evoca con coraje como comenzó siendo un firme partidario de la Revolución Cubana hasta que empezó a cuestionarse si había merecido la pena. Informe contra mí mismo es un libro a favor de lo que amo: mi familia, los amigos, la isla entera. No me propuse una memoria de la historia sino una primera historia de mi memoria. Preciso: la emocionante memoria de los míos. Sobre la experiencia de la Revolución cubana se ha debatido casi siempre en defensa de posiciones extremas. A quemarropa. La razón dicta. La pasión ciega. Sólo la emoción conmueve, porque la emoción es, a fin de cuentas, la única razón de la pasión. Lo único imperdonable es el olvido. Tarde o temprano, los cubanos nos volveremos a encontrar, bajo la sombra isleña de una nube. Hay que estar atentos: el toque de una clave se escucha de lejos.» ENGLISH DESCRIPTION "Report Against Myself is a book in favor of all that I love: my family, my friends, the entire island. I didn't intend to write a memoir of the story but rather a first story about my memory. Let me clarify: the exciting memory of my people. The experience of the Cuban Revolution has almost always been debated in defense of extreme positions. If some fellow countryman, in any remote corner of the world, recognizes himself or herself in these pages and remembers because of my memories, I will feel like I have company. The only unforgivable thing is to forget. Sooner or later, Cubans will find each other again, under the island shade of a cloud. But you have to be alert: the sound of a clave can be heard from far away". - Eliseo Alberto

Informe contra mí mismo / Report Against Myself (Spanish Edition)

La eternidad por fin comienza un lunes (Spanish Edition)

Editorial Anagrama

A crazed Cuban veteran, unable to commit suicide, goes in search of someone to do the deed for him. Original and rich in character development, precise and musical in its language, Caracol Beach is a novel readers cannot put down.

CARACOL BEACH PDL ELISEO ALBERTO (Spanish Edition)

Short Stories & Anthologies

Punto de Lectura, S.L.

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