Dreaming in Cuban. [Import] [Paperback]

Cristina. Garcia (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: KNOPF. NY 1992 (1992)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0006544983
• ISBN-13: 978-0006544982
• Product Dimensions: 7.6 x 5.1 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (49 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,976,149 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

NOTE TO READERS: If you'd like your copy of The Lady Matador's Hotel signed and/or dedicated, please message me through my website and I'll let you know where to send the book(s). Book clubs welcome! Return postage on me. Ole!

Cristina García is the author of five novels: Dreaming in Cuban, The Agüero Sisters, Monkey Hunting, A Handbook to Luck, and The Lady Matador's Hotel.
García has edited two anthologies, Cubanísimo: The Vintage Book of Contemporary Cuban Literature and Bordering Fires: The Vintage Book of Contemporary Mexican and Chicano/a Literature. Two works for young readers, The Dog Who Loved the Moon, and I Wanna Be Your Shoebox were published in 2008. A collection of poetry, The Lesser Tragedy of Death, was recently published by Akashic Press. Her new young adult novel, Dreams of Significant Girls, will be published in July 2011.

García's work has been nominated for a National Book Award and translated into a dozen languages. She is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Whiting Writers' Award, a Hodder Fellowship at Princeton University, and an NEA grant, among others. She has taught literature and writing at numerous universities and divides her time between Texas and northern New Mexico. Please visit her website at www.cristinagarcianovelist.com.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

37 of 41 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The story of people and the story of Cuba, January 30, 2000

By 

Linda Linguvic (New York City) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Dreaming in Cuban (Paperback)

This gem of a first novel, written in 1992, by Christina Garcia is the story of Cuba as well as the story of a few unforgettable Cuban women. The words themselves have a lyrical quality as the the tale evolves through their different voices.

Set in the 1970's, Celia del Pino, in her 60s, is a loyal Cuban patriot, who lives by the sea. Her daughter, Lourdes, has fled to America and owns a bakery in Brooklyn. The other daughter, Felicia, still in Cuba, shows signs of mental unbalance and dabbles in Santeria. Her granddaughter, Pilar, a rebellious teenager, has been raised in America but feels a deep connection with her grandmother in Cuba.

There's a dreamlike quality to the book and a touch of the mystical as each character is deeply developed and the story evolves through their inner memories. Strong characterization is the author's strength as well as the way she weaves the stories of each of them together. They've all been effected by the revolution and it shapes the form of this book.

Not only did reading this book introduce me to its interesting characters, it also taught me more about the Cuban revolution than I ever learned from just reading the newspapers. And it piqued my interest in wanting to know more.

Recommended.

41 of 51 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Lyrical Madness, June 20, 2002

By 

Wendy Kaplan (Houston) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Dreaming in Cuban (Paperback)

Here is a truly unforgettable book. I was entranced from the very first sentence: "Celia del Pino, equipped with binoculars and wearing her best housedress and drop pearl earrings, sits in her wicker swing guarding the north coast of Cuba."

From that moment on, I was drawn as surely into this book as the tides in the sea that Celia is guarding. "Dreaming in Cuban" tells the story of the Cuban Revolution from the point of view of three generations of women: the above-mentioned Celia, the grandmother; her daughters, Felicia and Lourdes; and Lourdes' own daughter, Pilar. Each of the three older women, and perhaps Pilar, a 20-ish New York artist, is quite totally mad. Thus we see and hear and feel the revolution from the hallucinatory perceptions of Celia, who worships El Lider (Castro) with ferocity; Felicia, who is torn between old Cuba--its superstitions, its voodoo, its passion--and the modern Cuba, where she is sentenced to a work camp; and Lourdes, who has escaped to Brooklyn and proudly owns the Yankee Doodle Bakery.

There is violence, murder, passion, birth and death in this book, but all told in a sort of lyrical mist, so that the reader feels the torpid heat of the Cuban day, the gentle warmth of the sea, and the breezes that stir the palms. All is dreamlike, which makes the reality of modern Cuba almost impossible to grasp. As one of the main characters says toward the end of the book: "Cuba is a peculiar exile...an island-colony. We can reach it by a thirty-minute charter flight from Miami, yet never reach it at all."

And yet, after reading this incredible book, I feel for the first time that I have some understanding of that small island nation. Or maybe it is all a dream.

19 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Dreaming in Cuban, July 8, 2000

By 

"aralieclauds" - See all my reviews

This review is from: Dreaming in Cuban (Paperback)

I have to read this book for school, which automatically sounds a warning bell in my head: boring. So, as I sat at work with boredom threatening to force me to abandon all sanity, I sighed and picked up the book. From the very first sentence, I was hooked. Perhaps it wasn't only the plot that kept my attention focused, but also the fabulous writing style of the author. I didn't just read about Cuba, I felt Cuba. I didn't just read about the characters, I understood them. I ached for them. I pitied Pilar, whose mother reads her diary and punishes the young teenager for her emerging sense of sexuality. I pitied the twins, who faced a father's abuse and a mother's dwindling sanity with their stubborn, resilient silence. Cuban and United States relationships fall into the background amidst a story that could show up anywhere. The caring, but somewhat troubled grandmother, her rebellious daughter who's raising her own hellion, her troubled daughter who's twin daughters and young son have seen too much of the world... There is a certain sadness that follows these people struggling to go through the motions of love and family, held together by the ties of mother to child, forced apart by misunderstanding and uncertainty.