Review
" ... original and thrilling ... an obligatory passage for ... those who wish to know the dark innards of Cuban life ... " --
Benigno Dou, El Nuevo Herald, October 31, 2004"After the blackout, the reader sees the light, stops laughing, quivers, and understands the truth of this world." --
Margarita Montalvo, Puerto Rican writerThe novel’s strength lies in Dovalpage’s ability to construct the complex personal background of these characters ... " --
Criticas magazine, Nov./Dec. 2004
About the Author
Teresa Dovalpage was born Teresa de la Caridad Doval in Havana, Cuba in 1966. Growing up as an only child, she considered herself "a bookworm and a spiritual seeker—in sum, a quirky girl."
In 1990 she graduated from the School of Foreign Languages of the University of Havana with a Licenciatura (B.A.) in English Literature. In 1995 she earned a Master of Arts in Spanish Literature from the same university. After teaching English at a distant branch of the university, to which she commuted in Havana’s uncomfortable "camel" buses, she found a job at the Havana School of Dentistry, within walking distance of her parents’ house.
From 1990 to 1996 Teresa attended a Silent Quaker meeting --the only one of its kind in Havana--and frequented a variety of spiritual groups from yoga to the Violet Flame Circle. This latter group disappeared after two of its members committed suicide while looking for the Shambhala in the Escambray mountains of central Cuba. Teresa is presently writing a work of fiction about her experiences during those years.
In 1994 she met Hugh Page, an American psychologist, counselor, university professor and former Air Force chaplain. Teresa acted as his translator in Cuba when he visited the Quaker group. They married in 1994 and two years later she came to the United States, renaming herself Teresa Dovalpage. The couple first lived in San Diego, where Teresa taught Spanish in several community colleges and university extension courses. After being asked many questions about Cuba, she started writing down some answers in a series of vignettes. These episodes grew to become the novel, "A Girl Like Che Guevara", published under Teresa’s maiden name by Soho Press in April 2004.
In August 2002, Teresa and Hugh moved to Albuquerque, New Mexico, where she enrolled as a doctoral student in the University of New Mexico's Spanish and Portuguese Department. During her first year in Albuquerque she wrote another novel, this one in Spanish, about a family of Cuban women and their misadventures during a night of enforced blackout in Havana. "Posesas de La Habana" was published by Pureplay Press in August 2004.
