Tales from the Cuban Empire

In the five elliptical short stories of Tales from the Cuban Empire, Antonio Jose Ponte (In the Cold of the Malecon) explores some curious corners of contemporary Cuba. A student of nuclear physics on a sojourn in the Soviet Union, a distraught woman in an airport bathroom, an urban planner with a Borgesian secret, a Chinese butcher in search of the heart of an elephant and an undercover inspector listening to stories in a barbershop are Ponte's cryptic protagonists. The slight stiffness of the translation by Cola Franzen and the purposefully oblique narration make these fictions hard nuts to crack, but Ponte deserves credit for his fresh take on the much-mythologized island.