In a searing memoir of a family torn apart by exile, Pérez Firmat chronicles the painful search for roots that has come to dominate his adult life. Now, married to an American woman, and father to two children who are Cuban in name only, Firmat has finally come to acknowledge his need to celebrate his love of Cuba, while embracing the America he has come to cherish.
“In this fascinating account of a 30-year search for a homeland and a new national identity, Perez Firmat is caught between two cultures, the United States and his motherland, Cuba, as he struggles to come to terms with a new life. Exiled from their native land to the United States when the author was just 11, his family hoped for only a short stay until Castro’s regime was overthrown. But time went by and every new year brought the same expectations. Very engrossing and full of insights into the Cuban exile community.”
—Library Journal
“A serious work of literature – as well as a ripping good book.”
—The Washington Post Book World
“Smooth, poignant, witty…”
—Miami Herald
GUSTAVO PÉREZ FIRMAT is the author of Anything but Love (Arte Público Press, 2000) and El año que viene estamos en Cuba (Arte Público Press, 1997). A poet, fiction writer, and scholar, Pérez Firmat is the author of ten books and over seventy essays and reviews. His books of literary and cultural criticism include My Own Private Cuba (Society of Spanish & Spanish, 1999), Life on the Hyphen: The Cuban-American Way (University of Texas Press, 1994), Idle Fictions (Duke University Press, 1993), Do the Americas Have a Common Literature? (Duke University Press, 1990), and The Cuban Condition (Cambridge University Press, 1989). He has also published three collections of poetry: Bilingual Blues (Bilingual Review Press, 1995), Equivocaciones (1989), and Carolina Cuban (1987). The English-language edition of his memoir, El año que viene estamos en Cuba, Next Year in Cuba: A Cubano’s Coming of Age in America (Anchor Books, 1995), was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize in nonfiction in 1995. Pérez Firmat is also the author of Cincuenta Lecciones de Exilio y Desexilio (Ediciones Universal, 2000), Triple Crown: Chicano, Puerto Rican, and Cuban-American Poetry (Bilingual Review Press, 1997), and Cuban American Writers: Los Atrevidos (Linden Lane Press, 1989). In 1995, he was named Duke University Scholar/Teacher of the Year, Duke University’s highest award for teaching excellence. Pérez Firmat earned his Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from the University of Michigan. He lives in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, with his wife and two children.
Learn more at gustavoperezfirmat.com
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