Fiction. Latino/Latina Studies. Women's Studies. Translated from the Spanish by Sara E. Cooper with Victoria L. McCard, Lizabeth Paravizini-Gebert, Claudette Williams, and Leslie Bary. Catherine Davies notes that "Yáñez writes about everyday life in Havana; her chatty, colloquial style full of light-hearted humour, whatever the theme, makes her fiction a delight to read." Yáñez brings a critical and analytical gaze to rest on the culture and society that surrounds her. Her fictional world is complex, her characters are in conflict with themselves and the human condition. However much an ideology or code of ethics might inform her work, Yáñez has always—subtly, yet insistently—questioned and undercut the myth that any official discourse is infallible. Themes of class, race, gender, and sexuality are artfully interwoven in humorous and poignant narratives that make the reader pause to rethink her/his views or assumptions about Cuba and about life.

Havana Is a Really Big City: and Other Short Stories

Literature & Fiction

Yáñez, Mirta

Humor & Satire

Cubanabooks

Fiction. Latino/Latina Studies. Women's Studies. LGBT Studies. Translated from the Spanish by Anne Fountain. A bilingual edition of short fiction, DISCONNECT/ DESENCUENTRO explores sexuality, morality, and coincidence in present day Cuba. Irony and subtle humor permeate these stories , each with an internal disconnect of one type or another, prompting us to laugh at the inherent contradictions of life itself. Consistently characteristic of Alonso's fiction is her creation of everyday scenes and dialogues that are universally understood yet deeply rooted in Cuban reality—and Ethiopia, where Alonso was stationed. She is a masterful observer of human foibles, revealing missteps and hypocrisy with a sure touch and letting her readers discover the many ways that people connect and disconnect with the world around them.

Disconnect/Desencuentro

Nancy Alonso

United States

Fiction. Latino/Latina Studies. Women's Studies. Translated from the Spanish by Dick Cluster. Bilingual Edition. Edited by Sara E. Cooper. The crisp tension in this daring collection of short stories—with both the original Spanish and flawless English renditions—reveals a darker side of Cuban reality. One woman wakes up to find an unknown man fast asleep by her side. Another has misplaced her child, and doesn't know what to tell the police. A third has killed her racist and controlling father—or hasn't she, after all? A teenager at the beach—going, going, gone; a preteen suddenly abandoned with an unknown great-grandmother on the edge of nowhere; a professor who sees "the eye of the tiger" wherever she looks; a married woman who sees someone else in the mirror, someone playing an entirely different game. Ophelias is about women pushed to the edge of madness. These eight stories could happen anywhere—and they could happen only in Cuba.

Ophelias/Ofelias

Bahr, Aida

Fiction. Latino/Latina Studies. Women's Studies. Translated from the Spanish by Barbara Riess. Bilingual Edition. Edited by Sara E. Cooper, Jacqueline Loss, and Becky White. Winner of the 2016 International Latino Book Award for Best Fiction Book in Translation. "Solitary characters, afflicted by real or fictitious fears... a world plagued with absurdities... exceptional stories, told through an ironic perspective with humor and cruelty. Llana stories are a mixture of fantasy, dark humor, and gothic comedy. Her short stories contain a rich and thoroughly entertaining representation of a particular social class in Cuba during the last forty years: the bourgeoisie who struggled to maintain their social status and participated only by default in the construction of the new socialist society. Portraits of family and twisted gender roles abound, within a mysterious and uncanny domestic sphere that is unmistakably set in Havana."

An Address in Havana/Domicilio habanero: Selected Short Stories

Llana, María Elena

Fiction. Latino/Latina Studies. Women's Studies. Translated from the Spanish by Jeffrey C. Barnett. Edited by Paula Sanmartin and Maria di Franscesco. Second place winner, 2016 International Latino Book Award for Best Novel, Historical Fiction—Bilingual or Spanish. A metaphor of a nation and its Diaspora, this bilingual edition of THE MEMORY OF SILENCE/MEMORIA DEL SILENCIO transcends the Cuban reality and becomes a story of universal breadth, a triumph of love and family over distance and politics. In 1959, at the age of 18, the twin sisters Lauri and Menchu share a common past, but their lives abruptly take on seemingly irreconcilable differences as Lauri leaves with her groom for Miami and Menchu remains in Havana. The text, then, becomes a series of interpolated chronicles, as each alternating chapter recounts one sister's life and then the other until finally in the present, now reunited, the sisters must confront the pain of the past and as well as the promise of the future. The novel's theme of reconciliation presents a refreshing message, and a timely one.

The Memory of Silence/Memoria del silencio

de Aragón, Uva

Poetry. African &amp; African American Studies. Latino/Latina Studies. Women's Studies. Translated from the Spanish by Pamela Carmell. Bilingual Edition. Honorable Mention, 2016 International Latino Book Award for Best Bilingual Poetry Book. A collection of poetry by the world famous Afro-Cuban belle des letres Nancy Morejón. According to Alice Walker, "Morejón's poems remind us that all worlds are complex, complicated, dense. Sometimes it is only the poet's breath that holds together the disparities, some of them achingly diverse." The power of her lyrical voice mesmerizes. Most of these poems have never before appeared in English, and Pamela Carmell's delicate touch does tribute to their depth and intricacy. The theme of the collection is love, in all its forms—from romantic love, to familial affection, to patriotic fervor. Known as a feminist and a powerfully political player of the Cuban Revolution, Morejón reveals a different side of herself in this bilingual volume. Experience depths of passion and pride as experienced and represented by one of the most uniquely talented poets of our time.

Homing Instincts/Querencias

MOREJÓN, NANCY

Poetry

Poetry. African &amp; African American Studies. Latino/Latina Studies. Women's Studies. Translated from the Spanish by María Rodríguez-Alcalá, Juanamaría Cordones-Cook, and Alexander Cordones Cook. Compiled by Juanamaría Cordones-Cook and edited by Sara E. Cooper. Winner of the 2016 International Latino Book Award for Best Bilingual Poetry Book. This bilingual volume of poetry (with DVD) introduces the unique voice of Cuban writer Georgina Herrera, whose poetry is inspired by her African heritage. Eliseo Diego calls Herrera's work poetry of origin, pain, heartbreak, and consolation. Herrera manages to transform her pain into central aesthetic components of her work, which point to a legacy of sorrow and sacrifice. Though she indeed has suffered, Georgina Herrera possesses courage, energy, and a penetrating intelligence accompanied by a profound sense of dignity and an age-old wisdom that enable her to "take to the hills" in order to go on and tell us the truths of her cultural memory, of her soul, and of her vast experience accumulated over 80 years full of anxiety, exclusion, violence, and discrimination. At the end, her self- definition is of dignity and empowerment, challenging the representation imposed upon black women.

Always Rebellious/Cimarroneando: Selected Poems by Georgina Herrera

Herrera, Georgina

Fiction. Latino/Latina Studies. Women's Studies. LGBT Studies. Translated from the Spanish by Sara E. Cooper. Edited by Margaret Wallace and Nancy Alonso. Second place winner, 2016 International Latino Book Award for Best Fiction Book in Translation. Tones of disillusionment and wistful longing permeate the bilingual edition of this novel about the passage of time, the city of Havana, and death. Within its complex structure, a concert of diverse voices narrates the compelling sagas of a generation of Cubans who embraced the 1959 socialist revolution in their adolescence, as well as the young who inherited its boons and its banes. The novel is a palimpsest: layers of personal narratives overlay the story of the city of Havana. Readers will delve into the complicated actuality of Cuba as it is today, an island nation cherished by its inhabitants despite the harsh quotidian existence that it offers. The wound is bleeding, Havana is dying, and readers will want to know the answer to the questions posed in Yáñez's novel, questions as universal as they are intrinsically Cuban: Who are we? Why are we here? And what will become of us?

The Bleeding Wound/Sangra por la herida

Poetry. Latino/Latina Studies. Women's Studies. Edited by Nancy Alonso and Katherine Hedeen. Translated by Jeffrey C. Barnett. "These verses and prose poems offer difficult, hermetic verbal snapshots of Cuba—ironic and anguished but not without hope. One of Cuba's leading recent poets, Zurelys López Amaya's FLOCKS/REBAÑOS, constitutes the first full-length translation of one of her works into English. Recognized for its refreshing and unusual style, readers may find the poetic selections in FLOCKS/REBAÑOS to be polemical, on the one hand, and yet serene and detached on the other. In her prose poems, López Amaya finds sufficient space to develop the traditional allegory of the pastor and his flock, an extended metaphor that may lead the reader to consider disturbing questions about modern-day Cuba. As she portrays a society amassed in a pasture hopelessly waiting for an absent shepherd, her poems always lead our eye back to the flock, or rather the Cuban people. In doing so, she puts forth a complex and ambivalent view, one that is an instinctual lament but also one which finds solace in poetry. Despite the work's poignant socio-political insight, López Amaya's poetry is not limited to social thesis. Instead, she offers a rich and complex view of her world, all the while embracing simplicity and pondering aesthetic wonder. Throughout her poems we find a wide array of emotion, including empathy, loneliness, nostalgia, remorse, longing, and love. In short, whether posing disturbing images about her socio- political milieu or celebrating the mundane, FLOCKS/REBAÑOS provides the reader with a gestalt view of the poet's daily life, a vision that on the one hand is inextricably tied to Cuba, while on the other a vision that extends beyond the island to summon the universal."—Jeffrey C. Barnett "With FLOCKS/REBAÑOS Zurelys López Amaya ignites a string of bonfires that illuminate some of the most difficult contradictions and paradoxes of human experience. Here we are 'shadows' and 'emptiness' while also being 'light' and 'music'; we are 'alone and blind' while also 'welcomed on the Island that we meticulously create;' and we understand how the 'blood of Cain is everywhere,' but so, too, is 'the splendor of nature because it exists.' The touch of the translator, Jeffrey C. Barnett, is as delicate as it is deft, gifting readers access to López Amaya's virtuosic verse in an exquisitely scorched new tongue."—Seth Michelson "The bilingual prose poems of FLOCKS/REBAÑOS, by the Cuban poet Zurelys López Amaya, beautifully translated into English by Jeffrey C. Barnett, vividly dramatize emotions ranging from despair to celebration of survival (albeit at a price). The poems examine the often sinister power of collective identities (the flock) that a shared society imposes upon us all and the fears and limitations that burden all living beings."—Mary G. Berg "In this provocative book, Zurelys López Amaya examines with lucid tenderness the collective existence of the flock. Encircled by the unknown, flanked by fear, the flock survives in cautious monotony but is not hopeless. Detached from tiresome political discourses, la libertad, freedom, is evasive yet constantly possible. In FLOCKS/REBAÑOS the reader experiences la libertad as an object just barely out of sight—like that bus taking forever to arrive. The English translation is full of felicitous resolutions. While the book is a courageous insight into Cuban reality, it will give pasture for thought to readers around the world."—Pilar Cabrera Fonte

Flocks/Rebaños

Lopez Amaya, Zurelys

The unexpected creeps or lunges into daily life in these quirky stories, in which the characters must struggle against a variety of foes--from ghosts, to inimical forces, to their own fatal flaws.

About Spirits and Other Mysteries / Sobre Espíritus Y Otros Misterios (English and Spanish Edition)

Science Fiction & Fantasy

Llanillo, Esther Daz

Fantasy

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

Books by Cubanabooks