cover image Because Cuba is You

Because Cuba is You

Ramón Chao, trans. from the Spanish by Ann Wright. Route (Dufour, dist.), $19.95 trade paper (224p) ISBN 978-1-901927-50-4

The latest from Chao (The Train of Ice and Fire) unfurls through the guise of memory, as a man listens to his grandmother, Dolores, tell stories of her youthful adventures. The daughter of a fortune-teller, Dolores (also known as Lola, Lolita, and Lolina) falls for a much older man of the world, yet after he is imprisoned for witchcraft and quackery, she embarks on a journey that shuttles her from her Galician village to Cuba at the tail end of the 19th century. After a series of odd jobs, she becomes a maid for a Cuban political leader. Lolita/Dolores develops a romance with her boss, and she gets pregnant just as the country gains its independence. After being forced to return home by her employer—to avoid any scandal resulting from the pregnancy—she participates in a ritual that provides her with the gift of ubiquity. Able now to exist in two places at once, Lolita/Dolores fights for political change in both Galicia and Cuba, running with the Independent Association of Colour, anarchists, and Spanish communists. Chao’s work is equal parts historical fiction, family saga, and magical realism, and like all life-spanning chronicles, some stories provide bigger punches than others. (Nov.)