PANAMA captures the sweep of this country's tumultuous history. Moving between past and present--from pivotal events in Panama's past to the American withdrawal in 1999--this is the fast-paced saga of a man and a nation searching for their identities.
CARLOS LEDSON MILLER is the author of the historically-based action-adventure novels BELIZE and PANAMA. His third novel, STROKE, is set on the Texas Gulf Coast between Houston and Galveston, and it presents a young woman's odyssey through the forbidding world of professional pool. His latest novel, FRENCH QUARTER DANNY, depicts a young man coming of age in New Orleans' notorious Vieux Carré.
Carlos grew up in both Central America and the United States. His grandfather was one of the Americans who went to Panama in the early 1900s to dig the canal. Carlos' grandmother was Panamanian and his father was a first-generation Canal Zonian.
Carlos initially attended school in Panama. When he reached his teens, his father relocated to British Honduras (now Belize) and his mother returned home to the United States. Carlos attended high school and college in Louisiana, and spent summers in Belize.
After a four-year stint in the Marine Corps, Carlos settled on the Texas Gulf Coast, where he now lives, writes, and shoots pool.
About his work:
"A Rice University writing instructor once told me that for a novel to be good, it must be both entertaining and enlightening. I write milieu novels. My objective is not only to entertain my readers with fast-paced stories, but also to give them an understanding of the unusual cultures and landscapes against which they are set. My intent is not to alter fact, but to illuminate it, humanize it, and bring it to life. James Michener did this so well. I strive for similar results, but using the pace and economy of words required of today's fiction."
