Wendy Guerra Books

"A classic story . . . delivers real news from Cuba in a lyrical way."-NPR Available for a new generation, Wendy Guerra's intoxicating and heartrending classic--a portrait of economically depressed post-revolutionary Cuba in the late 1970s, written as the diary of a young girl left behind by her parents and the state, who becomes caught in an acrimonious custody battle. It is 1978, and Nieve finds herself caught between the tides of her parents' turbulent relationship and a country in turmoil. To try to control her situation, she begins to record the intimate and harsh details of her life in her diary. Becoming her sole means of expression, the diary is her only constant and her only friend. From being torn from her mother, her mother's free-spirited and loving boyfriend, and her childhood city of Cienfuegos, to living with her abusive father, an alcoholic theater actor, to her forced induction as a Cuban "revolutionary Pioneer," Nieve records in honest detail a life in which she is powerless as she loses the people and freedom she loves. Mirroring Wendy Guerra's own adolescent experiences, Everyone Leaves is a vivid portrait of family life and social and political unrest in Castro's Cuba that explores how the patriarchal and conformist notions of the Revolution ultimately betrayed the nation's women. Translated from the Spanish by Achy Obejas

Poems from a critically acclaimed Cuban writer available in English for the first time. Imbued with a sensuality reminiscent of the work of Anaïs Nin, Wendy Guerra's Delicates takes readers on an exhilarating journey through the cities of love, where women leave their bodies "in the showers of men," marking their territory "like animals in heat," their panties "saturated with sand and a sidereal isolating odor." Guerra's shocking metaphors and images invite us to enter her gallery of striking and provoking poems where we witness a flight through the air from a thirty-fourth-story window and a woman's pilgrimage to the salt flats "to taste the pink in stones" on her lover's behalf. Guerra's relationship with her native Cuba--much like her relationships with men--is complex and multilayered. Her work confronts the realities of a political system that doesn't celebrate artistic freedom. Here we have a new way of looking at a woman, an artist, a country, and the colonizers of that country. In these music-infused poems, Guerra shares with us her hard-won truths.

14 "BEST OF DECEMBER 2018" Lists Including Entertainment Weekly, BBC.com, New York Magazine / Vulture, Bustle, The Millions, Crimereads / LitHub, Book Riot, Asymptote Journal, Vol. 1 Brooklyn , Bust, Pop Sugar and Words Without Borders A novel of glamour, surveillance, and corruption in contemporary Cuba, from an internationally bestselling author--who has never before been translated into English Cleo, scion of a once-prominent Cuban family and a promising young writer in her own right, travels to Spain to collect a prestigious award. There, Cuban expats view her with suspicion--assuming she's an informant for the Castro regime. To Cleo's surprise, that suspicion follows her home to Cuba, where she finds herself under constant surveillance by the government. When she meets and falls in love with a Hollywood filmmaker, she discovers her family is not who she thought they were . . . and neither is the filmmaker.

"A lush, sensuous, and original tale of family, love, and history, set against the backdrop of the Cuban Revolution and its aftermath. Nadia Guerra's mother, Albis Torres, left when Nadia was just ten years old. Growing up, the proponents of revolution promised a better future. Now that she's an adult, Nadia finds that life in Havana hasn't quite matched its promise; instead it has stifled her rebellious and artistic desires. Each night she DJs a radio show government censors block from broadcasting. Frustrated, Nadia finds hope and a way out when she wins a scholarship to study in Russia. Leaving Cuba offers her the chance to find her long lost mother and her real father. But as she embarks on a journey east, Nadia soon begins to question everything she thought she knew and understood about her past. As Nadia discovers more about her family, her fate becomes entwined with that of Celia Sanchez, an icon of the Cuban Revolution-a resistance fighter, ingenious spy, and the rumored lover of Fidel Castro. A tale of revolutionary ideals and promise, Celia's story interweaves with Nadia's search for meaning, and eventually reveals secrets Nadia could never have dreamed"--