In honor of Hispanic Month (September 15, 2021 – October 15, 2021), I decided to read about a place I didn’t know much about. Cuba, an island that was forbidden, ruled by a man that lived longer than anyone expected, cut off from its closest neighbor, with its people fleeing on makeshift rafts at sea. What did I know about this island? Bits and pieces – the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Bay of Pigs, Cuban cigars, and the place where Sky Masterson takes Sarah Brown in Guys and Dolls. I figured it was time to learn more about the people, and maybe something about the politics of the place.
Since I love historical fiction, and learn about cultures and how they got there from novels, it made sense for me to pick one for the task. Next Year in Havana is a mix of historical details, sociological analysis, and a love story. Told from two women’s perspectives and times – Elisa Perez, debutante Cuban in high society of 1958 and Marisol Ferrera, freelance writer and member of Miami’s Cuban exile community in 2017.
Marisol, raised by her grandmother Elisa, is coming home to Cuba, where her grandparents fled with the family when Castro took over. She brings with her memories of stories told to her about the way things had been, and a tin containing the ashes of her grandmother, who told her those stories. Marisol is to find the final resting place for the ashes in Elisa’s beloved Cuba. Met at the airport by Elisa’s childhood best friend’s grandson, Marisol comes into possession of a pack of love letters from her grandmother to a man that was not her grandfather. This leads her on a quest for the truth.
Then, as before, asking questions can be bad for your health. Through eyes of revolutionaries, each woman in her time is faced with the stark reality that their lives were pampered, and that poverty was real and near. The details on how hard life had been on those that remained in Cuba, making a life through the hardships, versus those that left Cuba and settled in Miami clinging to what Cuba had been. It even goes into some detail on how the island nation had always wanted to be free, but was always at a larger country’s whim – America, Russia, and even Venezuela. The war that brought about Castro’s revolution, and the war that put Batista in power before him, were all about democracy – and the hope to return to constitutional law.
Ultimately, the question “are you a Cuban first or an American first”, and what that means to those that stayed and those that left simmers under the surface, as does the uneasy peace made to allow the regimes continue the grip on the people. Love, family love, romantic love, and love of country are at odds with each other in this novel. Nothing is easy, choices must be made, and you make the best of what you are given.
Other books that I have enjoyed from Hispanic authors, in no particular order:
One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Chronicle of a Death Foretold by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
The House of Spirits by Isabel Allende
How the Garcia Girls Lost their Accent by Julia Alverez
In the Time of Butterflies by Julia Alverez
Afterlife by Julia Alverez
The Alchemist by Pualo Coehlo
The Source 4 Books 