From Desi Arnaz and "I Love Lucy" to Gloria Estefan and the Miami Sound Machine, Cuban-Americans have conga'd and mambo'd their way into the heart of popular culture in the United States. This engaging book, which mixes the author's own story with his reflections as a trained observer, explores how both famous and ordinary members of the "1.5 Generation" (Cubans who came to United States as children or adolescents) have lived "life on the hyphen," neither fully Cuban nor fully American, but a fertile hybrid of both. Ranging widely from music to movies to television to literature, Gustavo Perez Firmat chronicles what it means to be Cuban in America. He offers an in-depth look at Cuban-Americans who have become icons of popular and literary culture, including Desi Arnaz, Oscar Hijuelos (whose The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love won the Pulitzer Prize and became a major motion picture), musician Perez Prado, poet Jose Kozer, and crossover pop stars Gloria Estefan and Jon Secada.

Life on the Hyphen: The Cuban-American Way

History

Firmat, Gustavo Pérez

Americas

Univ of Texas Pr

From Desi Arnaz and "I Love Lucy" to Gloria Estefan and the Miami Sound Machine, Cuban-Americans have conga'd and mambo'd their way into the heart of popular culture in the United States. This engaging book, which mixes the author's own story with his reflections as a trained observer, explores how both famous and ordinary members of the "1.5 Generation" (Cubans who came to United States as children or adolescents) have lived "life on the hyphen," neither fully Cuban nor fully American, but a fertile hybrid of both. Ranging widely from music to movies to television to literature, Gustavo Pérez Firmat chronicles what it means to be Cuban in America. He offers an in-depth look at Cuban-Americans who have become icons of popular and literary culture, including Desi Arnaz, Oscar Hijuelos (whose The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love won the Pulitzer Prize and became a major motion picture), musician Perez Prado, poet José Kozer, and crossover pop stars Gloria Estefan and Jon Secada.

University of Texas Press

The sense of the radical newness of Spanish America found in literary works from the chronicles of the conquest to the work of the criollistas has more recently given way to a stronger recognition of the transatlantic roots of much Spanish-American literature. This indebtedness does not imply subservience; rather, the New World's cultural and literary autonomy lies in the distinctive ways in which it assimilated its cultural inheritance. Professor Pérez Firmat explores this process of assimilation or transculturation in the case of Cuba, and proposes a new understanding of the issue of Cuban national identity through revisionary readings of both literary and non-literary works by Juan Marinello, Fernando Ortiz, Nicolds Guillén, Alejo Carpentier and others, dating from the early decades of the twentieth century, a time of intense self-reflection in the nation's history. Using a critical vocabulary derived from these works, he argues that Cuban identity is translational rather than foundational and that cubanía emerges from a nuanced, self-conscious recasting of foreign models.

The Cuban Condition: Translation and Identity in Modern Cuban Literature (Cambridge Studies in Latin American and Iberian Literature, Series Number 1)

Literature & Fiction

History & Criticism

Cambridge University Press

The sense of the radical newness of Spanish America found in literary works from the chronicles of the conquest to the work of the criollistas has more recently given way to a stronger recognition of the transatlantic roots of much Spanish-American literature. This indebtedness does not imply subservience; rather, the New World's cultural and literary autonomy lies in the distinctive ways in which it assimilated its cultural inheritance. Professor Pérez Firmat explores this process of assimilation or transculturation in the case of Cuba, and proposes a new understanding of the issue of Cuban national identity through revisionary readings of both literary and non-literary works by Juan Marinello, Fernando Ortiz, Nicolds Guillén, Alejo Carpentier and others, dating from the early decades of the twentieth century, a time of intense self-reflection in the nation's history. Using a critical vocabulary derived from these works, he argues that Cuban identity is translational rather than foundational and that cubanía emerges from a nuanced, self-conscious recasting of foreign models.

Es posible que todo el que ha abandonado su país, al llegar al destierro, niegue la realidad de su exilio. Pero entonces pasan los años —diez, veinte, treinta, cuarenta, ¡cincuenta! Y la realidad se impone, la de un exilio sin fin ni finalidad. La impostura ya no es máscara; es cara. Gustavo Pérez Firmat Este libro es la Biblia de bolsillo de los exiliados cubanos. Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo

Cincuenta lecciones de exilio y desexilio (Spanish Edition)

CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform

A thirty-year journey spent in search of a home and an identity culminates in Gustavo Perez Firmat's compelling chronicle.

El Ano Que Viene Estamos En Cuba (Spanish and English Edition)

Biographies & Memoirs

Perez-Firmat, Gustavo

Arts & Literature

Arte Publico Press

Fiction. A sardonic, sexy first novel from the acclaimed Cuban American author Gustavo Perez Firmat. The conflicted protagonist may remind some readers of Peter Tarnopol in Philip Roth's My Life As a Man, and others of Bob Slocum in Joseph Heller's Something Happened, but Perez Firmat has imbued this deft fiction debut with a Cuban American flavor all his own. He is skilled at evoking the richness of a world where humor eases hardship -- The New Yorker.

Anything But Love

United States

Poet, fiction, writer, and scholar Gustavo Perez Firmat writes a heartfelt memoir of a Cuban-American's lifelong search for identity and a sense of roots in his adopted land.

Next Year in Cuba: A Cubano's Coming-Of-Age in America

An immigrant from Cuba as a child, the author recounts growing up in Miami's Little Havana, his struggle to come to terms with American culture, his eventual estrangement from his family, and his feelings about his native country. Tour.

Memoirs

Scrivenery Pr

Poetry. Memoir. Latino/Latina Studies. In SCAR TISSUE, Gustavo Perez Firmat's most revealing and courageous book to date, the widely acclaimed author tells his story of enduring illness and loss between two cultures. More than a recovery journal, this collection of poetry and prose is a reflection on the resources for healing and renewal available to those whose lives are divided between countries, cultures, and languages.

Scar Tissue

Bilingual Review Press

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Firmat, Gustavo Pérez. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Firmat, Gustavo Pérez

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Firmat, Gustavo Pérez. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Life on the Hyphen: The Cuban-American Way

Life on the Hyphen: The Cuban-American Way

The Cuban Condition: Translation and Identity in Modern Cuban Literature (Cambridge Studies in Latin American and Iberian Literature, Series Number 1)

The Cuban Condition: Translation and Identity in Modern Cuban Literature (Cambridge Studies in Latin American and Iberian Literature, Series Number 1)

Cincuenta lecciones de exilio y desexilio (Spanish Edition)

El Ano Que Viene Estamos En Cuba (Spanish and English Edition)

Anything But Love

Next Year in Cuba: A Cubano's Coming-Of-Age in America

Next Year in Cuba: A Cubano's Coming-Of-Age in America

Scar Tissue