A twenty-four-year-old Cuban lesbian seeks a place for herself in her adopted American home while learning to cope with her dysfunctional family and overwhelming memories of her life in Cuba

A twenty-four-year-old Cuban lesbian seeks a place for herself in her adopted American home while learning to cope with her dysfunctional family and overwhelming memories of her life in Cuba

A collection of short stories that deals with how gay and lesbian relationships ought to work, exploring the themes of broken relationships, safe sex, drug addiction, and AIDS

“RICH AND SONOROUS PROSE . . . There’s plenty of reason to hope for the future of a fiction that welcomes writers with such a passionate sense of the past.”–San Jose Mercury NewsOn New Year’s Day, 1959, Alejandra San José was born in Havana, entering the world through the heart of revolution. Fearing the turmoil brewing in Cuba, her parents took Ale and fled to the shores of North America–ending up in Chicago amid a close community of Cuban refugees. As an adult, Ale becomes an interpreter, which takes her back to her homeland for the first time. There, she makes her way back through San José history, uncovering new fragments of truth about the relatives who struggled with their own identities so long ago. For the San Josés, ostensibly Catholics, are actually Jews. They are conversos who converted to Christianity during the Spanish Inquisition. As Alejandra struggles to confront what it is to be Cuban and American, Catholic and Jewish, she translates her father’s troubling youthful experiences into the healing language of her own heart.“Lyrically written, Days of Awe reflects the way Cuban Spanish is spoken with poetic rhythm and frankness.”–Ms.“An ambitious work . . . A deft talent whose approach to sex, religion, and ethnicity is keenly provocative.” –Miami Herald“With intelligent, intense writing, Obejas approaches . . . the heady climes of Cuban American stalwarts Oscar Hijuelos and Cristina Garcia.”–Library Journal (starred review)

Presents a collection of stories by current and former residents of Havana that relate tales of ambiguous moralities, collective cruelty, and the damage incurred by self-preservation at all costs.

Product Description: "A mix of such otherworldly scenarios, pop culture references and linguistic inventiveness comes remarkably together for a brazen social and political commentary on modern Mexican reality."  —NPR BooksThe English-language debut of “one of the most original and entertaining voices in contemporary Mexican literature” (Revista Gatopardo): a collection of surreal, ironic, and madcap stories about the comedy and brutality of life in Mexico...read more