Cuba in Splinters: Eleven Stories from the New Cuba

by Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo (Editor), Hillary Gulley (Translator)

Think Cuba, you’re likely to think bearded revolutionaries in fatigues. Salsa. Sugar cane.

Rock ‘n’ roll, zombies, drugs – anomie and angst – do not generally figure in our mental images of a country that’s assumed an outsized place in the American imagination. But fresh from the tropics, in "Cuba in Splinters" – a sparkling package of stories we’re assured are fictional – that’s exactly what you’ll find. Eleven writers largely unknown outside Cuba depict a world that veers from a hyperreal Havana in decay, against a backdrop of oblivious drug-toting German tourists, to a fantasy land – or is it? – where vigilant Cubans bar the door to zombies masquerading as health inspectors. Sex and knife-fights, stutterers and addicts, losers and lost literary classics: welcome to a raw and genuine island universe closed to casual visitors.

Genres: Short Stories

224 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2014

About the author

Photographer and writer Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo was born in Havana, Cuba in 1971. Trained as a molecular biochemist, he is the webmaster for the blogs Lunes de Post-Revolución and Boring Home Utopics. His writing has appeared in Sampsonia Way Magazine, Diario De Cuba, CubaEncuentro, Penúltimos Días, All Voices, In These Times, Qué Pasa, and many other international publications. As an editor, he has compiled two anthologies of contemporary Cuban fiction translated into English and worked for the cultural magazine Extramuros as well as several independent Cuban digital magazines, including Cacharro(s), The Revolution Evening Post, and Voces. In 2012, he organized País de Píxeles, the first independent photodocumentary festival in Cuba. In 2013 his photographic work was profiled by David González of The New York Times. A resident of Havana, he visits the United States to give university lectures about social activism and Cuban civic society using new media.

Reviews

[Halley Sutton · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not what I was expecting. I kept trying to picture the authors of the stories, their lives. Some of them sounded very much like people I would know or be friends with, which under no circumstances should be shocking but still felt more real to me, perhaps, than other short story collections I've read lately. Made me think. Stories were hit or miss. Last one wasn't my favorite but might actually be the one that stays with me the longest.

Unexpectedly, a lot of talk about vaginas.

[Jill · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some of the stories were completely incomprehensible and/or somewhat pretentious, but the collection as a whole gave me a better understanding of (and piqued my interest in) the Cuba of the new millennium.