AltWeeklies Wire
Oscar Hijuelos Sings Songs of Himselfnew
Cuban Pulitzer Prize-winner tries his hand at memoir.
East Bay Express |
Stefanie Kalem |
06-20-2011 |
Author Profiles & Interviews
Tags: Cuba, Oscar Hijuelos
Journo Ann Louise Bardach Publishes Exposé on Castro While Feds Seek Her Testimonynew
Without Fidel cements Bardac's stature as America's best-informed and most insightful writer about Castro's 50-year reign and the fervid passions, plots, and politics of Washington and South Florida aimed at destroying it.
Santa Barbara Independent |
Jerry Roberts |
10-26-2009 |
Author Profiles & Interviews
'That Infernal Little Cuban Republic' Dissects the Shared History of Cuba and Americanew
Lar Schoultz focuses on the Castro years, which he reconstructs in impressive detail, fleshing out such well-known events as the doomed 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion with eye-opening depth. Better yet, often-glossed questions are aired with the fullness of Schoultz's four decades of wrestling with the Cuba question. Still, there's something missing.
The Texas Observer |
Mike Kanin |
08-12-2009 |
Nonfiction
'Havana Nocturne' Looks at Gambling, Guns and Sex in Pre-Castro Cubanew
The pre-Castro days of the late 1940s and the 1950s were the era when the Mafia ran the most successful string of big-buck casinos, posh hotels and spectacular nightclubs ever seen in this hemisphere -- and paid Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista nearly $10 million (in today's money) per week to ensure that their good thing was "protected."
Creative Loafing (Charlotte) |
John Grooms |
08-27-2008 |
Nonfiction
Achy Obejas Uses the Noir Form to Explore Her Cuban Rootsnew
The 18 stories collected in the anthology Havana Noir are nothing if not messy. The Havana reflected in its pages is coldly violent and explosively loving. It's vibrant, brutal, amoral, sordid, romantic, idealistic, pragmatic, and gleefully ambiguous.
Chicago Reader |
Martha Bayne |
06-02-2008 |
Author Profiles & Interviews
'Crossing the Waters' Offers a Peek into the Afro-Cuban Religionnew
The book's charismatic protagonist is Santiago Castaneda Vera, a spiritual practitioner who "works" the spirits of the dead and whose sacred oricha is Yemaya, the mother of the waters.
INDY Week |
Sylvia Pfeiffenberger |
04-10-2008 |
Nonfiction
