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By: Beth Kephart ,
on 4/14/2014
Blog: Beth Kephart Books (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Chicago Tribune, Achy Obejas, Immigrant Voices, Megan Bayles, Add a tag
For the Chicago Tribune I reviewed an extraordinary collection of short stories, Immigrant Voices, edited by Achy Obejas and Megan Bayles.
My thoughts are here.
By: Manuel Ramos,
on 9/25/2009
Blog: La Bloga (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Su teatro, Achy Obejas, Lucha Corpi, La Onda Chicana, Richard T. Rodriguez, Latin Grammy, Julio Rodríguez Ramos, Carlos Fuentes, Add a tag
Music and Movies ... Chicano music is getting more recognition as a unique genre of American music. Several books and movies about the music have appeared recently, and I've read how one branch of Chicano music, Conjunto, is immensely more popular than Salsa, although you might not know it based on mainstream media attention. In case you didn't know, Chicano music is made up of diverse musicians and styles such as Ritchie Valens, Carlos Santana, Los Lobos and Los Tigres del Norte. Recent movie releases include the terrific Chicano Rock! The Sounds of East L.A., which followed ground-breaking movies such as Chulas Fronteras and Lalo Guerrero: The Original Chicano. Now comes word of La Onda Chicana, a documentary that figures to provide more attention to the music some of us grew up with and still listen to. Here's the intro to an article about La Onda Chicana by Ramon Renteria in the El Paso Times:
New York filmmaker John J. Valadez describes "La Onda Chicana," not as another boring documentary, but as "Mexican-American Music 101, full of surprises."
The Latin Recording Academy and McDonald's will host Latin GRAMMY In The Schools programs in New York, Chicago, Miami, Los Angeles, and Dallas. This educational program is an initiative of The Latin Academy to provide students who are interested in pursuing careers in the music industry the opportunity to learn from musicians, songwriters, producers, record label executives and other members of the recording industry about the various career choices within the music business. McDonald's will serve as presenting sponsor of the program for the second year... The Latin Recording Academy is thrilled to once again offer students this exciting education initiative and highlight the various career choices within the music industry, said Gabriel Abaroa, President of The Latin Recording Academy. This is one of the initiatives that The Latin Academy is most proud of as we connect successful musicians and business people with future musicians and executives. We thank McDonald's for their continued support and we look forward to another grade A+ Latin GRAMMY In The Schools program.
The Latin GRAMMY In The Schools program is scheduled to visit Celia Cruz Bronx School of Music in Bronx, N.Y on September 25; Benito Juarez Community Academy in Chicago on October 2; Coral Park Senior High School in Miami on October 9; the GRAMMY Museum in Los Angeles on October 16; and Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing Arts in Dallas on October 23. Additional program taking place in Las Vegas will be announced shortly. Additionally, making stops at each of the programs will be the Fiesta Tour McDonald's Music Experience — a traveling music exhibit that features memorabilia from more than 50 Latino artists who have contributed to the advancement of music, culture and education. The music exhibit is housed in a 70-plus foot vehicle and includes a walk-through display of artifacts and memorabilia and great moments in Latin music history. Organized by decades, from the 1950s to the present, the exhibit includes items from Celia Cruz, Thalía, Ricky Martin, Daddy Yankee, Alejandro Sanz, Pepe Aguilar, Beto Cuevas, Maná, and Ivy Queen just to name a few.
Theater ... El Teatro Campesino, the groundbreaking Chicano theater founded during the United Farm Workers' grape strike in 1965, visits Arizona State University to reprise a classic play about the lives of Mexican migrants.
Photography ... The photographic exhibit Baja California runs to January 3 at the San Diego Natural History Museum in Balboa Park.
In addition to photographs by Ralph Lee Hopkins, outstanding images by American and Mexican photographers will also be shown. On view will be photographs of Baja California by Octavio Aburto, Pilar Artola, Miguel Angel de la Cueva, Jack Dykinga, Patricio Robles Gil, Flip Nicklin, Abe Ordover, and Julio Rodríguez Ramos.
These images bear witness to the great natural diversity in the 800-mile-long peninsula, says Annaliese Cassarino, curator and director of the museum's Ordover Gallery, where the exhibit will be housed.
Many people aren't aware of the immense diversity of the flora and fauna in Baja California, she says.
And that's because the peninsula is much more than the tourist destinations of Tijuana, Ensenada and Los Cabos.
There's the San Ignacio Lagoon, a sanctuary for whales that migrate from the Arctic Ocean every winter. There's the Sea of Cortez, considered to be the world's aquarium. And there are the deserts, brimming over with cactuses.
Tijuana's Rodríguez is participating in the exhibit with photographs of the vineyards and the wine culture of the Guadalupe Valley.
I tried to capture the grandeur of Baja California,” he says. “These photographs are proof that the peninsula is much more than just a region with rocks and thorns. Learn more here.
Read to succeed.
Later.
By: Lisa Alvarado,
on 2/27/2009
Blog: La Bloga (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: fiction, novel, graphic novel, social commentary, LGBT, novelist, Cuban literature, Achy Obejas, Andres Montoya Poetry Prize, Add a tag
Poet. Novelist. Translator. Teacher. Journalist. Achy Obejas is a bright light in our literary firmament, nationally and internationally. On a personal note, many years ago, she and I read with such glowing stars as Sandra Cisneros, Ana Castillo, Norma Alarcon, at a long-defunct women's bookstore, Jane Addams on Michigan Avenue, here in Chicago. Her work exudes a keen sense of humor, of irony, of compassion and is laced with the infinite small moments that make her poetry and her novels sing with the breath of real life.
THE BIO:
Achy Obejas was born in 1956 in Havana, Cuba, a city that she left six years later when she came to the United States with her parents after the Cuban revolution. She grew up in Michigan City, Indiana, and moved to Chicago in 1979. At the age of thirty-nine, Obejas returned to the island of her birth "for a brief visit and was seduced by a million things". The Cuba of her imagination and experience recur throughout her writings.
An accomplished journalist, Obejas worked briefly for the Chicago Sun-Times from 1980-81 and then for the Chicago Reader. She has also written for The Windy City Times, The Advocate, High Performance, and The Village Voice. Her coverage of the Chicago mayoral elections earned her the 1998 Peter Lisagor Award for political reporting. She currently is a cultural writer for the Chicago Tribune, where she has worked since 1991.
Obejas' poetry has appeared in a number of journals, including Conditions, Revista Chicano-Rique, and The Beloit Poetry Journal. In 1986, she received an NEA fellowship in poetry. Her short stories have also been widely published in journals and anthologies. Her novels include We Came All the Way from Cuba So You Could Dress Like This? (1994) and Memory Mambo (1996), both published by Cleis Press. Memory Mambo won a Lambda Award, and her third novel, Days of Awe (2001), also won the 2002 Lambda Award for Lesbian Fiction.
Although she has lived in the Midwestern United States since she was six, Obejas has always identified with Cuba. She says in an interview:
As an activist and writer, Obejas continues to explore her Cuban identity and experience, earning her an important place in the literature of the United States.
(Courtesy of Voices From the Gaps)
THE BOOK:
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
RUINS a novel of Cuba by Achy Obejas
$15.95, 300 pages, ISBN-13: 978-1-933354-69-9
Publication date: March 2009, A Trade Paperback Original, Fiction
A selection of Barnes & Noble's Discover Great New Writers program
*Scroll down for 2009 author events
A true believer is faced with a choice between love for his family and the Cuban Revolution.
"Daring, tough, and deeply compassionate, Achy Obejas's Ruins is a breathtaker. Obejas writes like an angel, which is to say: gloriously . . . one of Cuba’s most important writers.”
--Junot Díaz, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction
"In the Havana of Ruins, scarcity can only be fought with ingenuity, and the characters work very hard at the exquisite art of getting by. The plot rests on the schemes of its weary, obsessive, dreamy hero--a character so brilliantly drawn that he can’t be dismissed or forgotten. A tender and wildly accurate portrait, in a gem of a novel."
--Joan Silber, author of The Size of the World
USNAVY HAS ALWAYS BEEN A TRUE BELIEVER. When the Cuban Revolution triumphed in 1959, he was just a young man and eagerly signed on for all of its promises. But as the years have passed, the sacrifices have outweighed the glories and he’s become increasingly isolated in his revolutionary zeal. His friends openly mock him, his wife dreams of owning a car totally outside their reach, and his beloved fourteen-year-old daughter haunts the coast of Havana, staring north.
IN THE SUMMER OF 1994, a few years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the government allows Cubans to leave at will and on whatever will float. More than 100,000 flee--including Usnavy’s best friend. Things seem to brighten when he stumbles across what may or may not be a priceless Tiffany lamp that reveals a lost family secret and fuels his long repressed feelings . . . But now Usnavy is faced with a choice between love for his family and the Revolution that has shaped his entire life.
ACHY OBEJAS is the author of various books, including the award-winning novel Days of Awe. She is the editor of Akashic’s critically acclaimed crime-fiction anthology Havana Noir, and the translator (into Spanish) for Junot Diaz’s The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. Currently, she is the Sor Juana Writer in Residence at DePaul University in Chicago. She was born in Havana and continues to spend extended time there.
Praise for HAVANA NOIR edited by Achy Obejas:
"[A] remarkable collection . . . Throughout these 18 stories, current and former residents of Havana deliver gritty tales of depravation, depravity, heroic perseverance, revolution and longing in a city mythical and widely misunderstood."
--Publishers Weekly
2009 AUTHOR EVENTS:
--Sat., February 21, 2pm--EVANSVILLE, IN--Barnes & Noble, 624 S. Green River Rd.
--Tues., February 24, 8pm--MIAMI BEACH, FL--Books & Books, 933 Lincoln Rd.
--Sat., February 28, 3pm--MISHAWAKA, IN--Barnes & Noble, 4601 Grape Rd.
*Cosponsored by the Institute for Latino Studies at the University of Notre Dame
--Thurs., March 5, 7:30pm--CHICAGO, IL--Women & Children First, 5233 N. Clark
*Book release event
--Sat., March 7, 3pm--LAFAYETTE, IN--Barnes & Noble, 2323 Sagamore Parkway S.
--Mon., March 9, 7pm--MADISON, WI--Barnes & Noble West, 7433 Mineral Point Rd.
--Tues., March 10, 7pm--IOWA CITY, IA--Prairie Lights Books, 15 S. Dubuque St.
--Wed., March 18, 7pm--ST. LOUIS, MO--Left Bank Books, 399 N. Euclid Ave.
--Thurs., March 19, 7pm--CINCINNATI, OH--Joseph-Beth Booksellers, 2692 Madison Rd.
--Fri., March 20, 7pm--ASHEVILLE, NC--Malaprop's, 55 Haywood St.
--Sat., March 21, 3pm--DURHAM, NC--Barnes & Noble, 5400 New Hope Commons
--Sun., March 22, 6:30-8pm--WASHINGTON, DC--Busboys and Poets at 5th & K, 1025 5th St. NW
*With Achy Obejas (RUINS) and Robert Arellano (HAVANA LUNAR)
--Mon., March 23, 6:30-8pm--BALTIMORE, MD--Enoch Pratt Free Library (Central Branch, Poe Room), 400 Cathedral St.
*With Achy Obejas (RUINS) and Robert Arellano (HAVANA LUNAR)
--Tues., March 24, 7pm--NEW YORK, NY--Bluestockings, 172 Allen St.
*With Achy Obejas (RUINS) and Robert Arellano (HAVANA LUNAR)
--Wed., March 25, 7:30pm--NEW YORK, NY--92nd St. Y, 1395 Lexington Ave.
*With Achy Obejas (RUINS) and Robert Arellano (HAVANA LUNAR)
--Thurs., March 26, 8pm--METUCHEN, NJ--Raconteur Books, 431 Main St.
*With Achy Obejas (RUINS) and Robert Arellano (HAVANA LUNAR)
--Fri., March 27, 7:30pm--PROVIDENCE, RI--Ada Books, 717 Westminster St.
*With Achy Obejas (RUINS) and Robert Arellano (HAVANA LUNAR)
--Tues., May 5, 7:30pm--PORTLAND, OR--Powell's, 1005 W. Burnside
*Akashic All-Stars event with Achy Obejas (RUINS), Maggie Estep (ALICE FANTASTIC), and Robert Arellano (HAVANA LUNAR)
--Thurs., May 7, 7pm--SAN FRANCISCO, CA--City Lights, 261 Columbus Ave.
*Akashic All-Stars event with Achy Obejas (RUINS), Maggie Estep (ALICE FANTASTIC), and Robert Arellano (HAVANA LUNAR)
--Fri., May 8, 7pm--LOS ANGELES, CA--Book Soup, 8818 Sunset Blvd.
*Akashic All-Stars event with Achy Obejas (RUINS), Maggie Estep (ALICE FANTASTIC), and Robert Arellano (HAVANA LUNAR)
--Sat., May 9, 7:30pm--SAN FRANCISCO, CA--Make-Out Room, 3225 22nd St.
*Part of the "Writers with Drink" reading series
Contact: Johanna Ingalls/Akashic Books
232 Third St., Suite B404
Brooklyn, NY 11215
Tel: 718-643-9193/Fax: 718-643-9195
[email protected]
www.akashicbooks.com
Lisa Alvarado
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By: Beth Kephart ,
on 4/14/2014
Blog: Beth Kephart Books (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Chicago Tribune, Achy Obejas, Immigrant Voices, Megan Bayles, Add a tag
My thoughts are here.
By: Manuel Ramos,
on 9/25/2009
Blog: La Bloga (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Su teatro, Achy Obejas, Lucha Corpi, La Onda Chicana, Richard T. Rodriguez, Latin Grammy, Julio Rodríguez Ramos, Carlos Fuentes, Add a tag
So much happening ...
Literature ... Cuban-American journalist Achy Obejas will speak at IU Bloomington September 30 during National Hispanic Heritage Month. Her lecture, titled Navigating Multiple Identities, will take place from 7-8:30 p.m. at the Helene G. Simon Hillel Center (730 E. Third St.) and will address the issue of the interwoven facets of identity -- race, culture, sexual orientation, gender and religion -- that make us who we are. ... Obejas, an author and teacher, grew up in Indiana and attended IU from 1977 to 1979 (she eventually received a Master of Fine Arts from Warren Wilson College in 1993). She later moved to Chicago and wrote about culture for the Chicago Tribune, where in 2001 she was awarded a team Pulitzer Prize in the category of explanatory reporting. As a Cuban-lesbian-Jewish woman, Achy can speak from multiple perspectives, said Lillian Casillas, director of La Casa. Her visit will be an excellent opportunity to engage with students and the community and have a meaningful dialogue about these issues. In 2008, Obejas translated Junot Díaz's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao into Spanish. Her most recent book, Ruins, (March 2009), has met with international acclaim. Said Junot Díaz of the book: Daring, tough and deeply compassionate, Achy Obejas's Ruins is a breathtaker. Obejas writes like an angel, which is to say: gloriously . . . one of Cuba's most important writers. More info here.
Richard T. Rodriguez will discuss his new book, Next of Kin: The Family in Chicano/a Cultural Politics, on Thursday, October 8 at 4:00 p.m. at the University of Minnesota Bookstore 
in Coffman Memorial Union, 300 Washington Ave. S.E., Minneapolis.
The family has been the heart of Chicano/a cultural politics since the Mexican American civil rights movements emerged in the late 1960s. Rodriguez explores the competing notions of la familia found in movement-inspired literature, film, video, music, painting and other forms of cultural studies and feminist and queer theory. Next of Kin examines representations of the family that reflect and support a patriarchal, heteronormative nationalism as well as those that reconfigure kinship to encompass alternative forms of belonging.
Rodriguez will sign copies of his book following the discussion. This event is free and open to the public. For more information, or to order a signed copy visit this website.
Renowned Mexican writer Carlos Fuentes will speak on Friday, October 30, at 6 p.m. in the University of New Mexico Student Union Building Ballroom, Albuquerque, NM. Fuentes will speak on Mexico in a Nutshell featuring a panoramic vision of Mexican history and culture from the pre-Hispanic epoch to the present.
Fuentes’ talk is the final of a three-part series hosted by the UNM Provost’s Office with a theme of Mexican relations and immigration. The lecture is free and open to the public. Media Contact: Karen Wentworth, (505) 277-5627; e-mail: [email protected]
Fuentes also is scheduled to appear in El Paso, Texas. The acclaimed author will talk about the book Sun, Stone, and Shadows: 20 Great Mexican Short Stories at 2 p.m. October 31 at the Plaza Theatre, 125 Pioneer Plaza. Free tickets available at El Paso Public Library. 543-5480.
Lucha Corpi informed La Bloga that her latest Gloria Damasco novel, Death at Solstice, will be available after October 15. Booklist says the multilayered plot full of California history and Latin American lore will interest a wide variety of mystery readers.
Music and Movies ... Chicano music is getting more recognition as a unique genre of American music. Several books and movies about the music have appeared recently, and I've read how one branch of Chicano music, Conjunto, is immensely more popular than Salsa, although you might not know it based on mainstream media attention. In case you didn't know, Chicano music is made up of diverse musicians and styles such as Ritchie Valens, Carlos Santana, Los Lobos and Los Tigres del Norte. Recent movie releases include the terrific Chicano Rock! The Sounds of East L.A., which followed ground-breaking movies such as Chulas Fronteras and Lalo Guerrero: The Original Chicano. Now comes word of La Onda Chicana, a documentary that figures to provide more attention to the music some of us grew up with and still listen to. Here's the intro to an article about La Onda Chicana by Ramon Renteria in the El Paso Times:
New York filmmaker John J. Valadez describes "La Onda Chicana," not as another boring documentary, but as "Mexican-American Music 101, full of surprises."
"We don't pull any punches. It's about people's real life experiences," Valadez said in a phone interview. "The obstacles that these artists have overcome were enormous."...
The film ... will be shown October 19 on "Latin Music USA," a four-part documentary series airing on PBS stations across the United States. Jump to this link.The Latin Recording Academy and McDonald's will host Latin GRAMMY In The Schools programs in New York, Chicago, Miami, Los Angeles, and Dallas. This educational program is an initiative of The Latin Academy to provide students who are interested in pursuing careers in the music industry the opportunity to learn from musicians, songwriters, producers, record label executives and other members of the recording industry about the various career choices within the music business. McDonald's will serve as presenting sponsor of the program for the second year... The Latin Recording Academy is thrilled to once again offer students this exciting education initiative and highlight the various career choices within the music industry, said Gabriel Abaroa, President of The Latin Recording Academy. This is one of the initiatives that The Latin Academy is most proud of as we connect successful musicians and business people with future musicians and executives. We thank McDonald's for their continued support and we look forward to another grade A+ Latin GRAMMY In The Schools program.
The Latin GRAMMY In The Schools program is scheduled to visit Celia Cruz Bronx School of Music in Bronx, N.Y on September 25; Benito Juarez Community Academy in Chicago on October 2; Coral Park Senior High School in Miami on October 9; the GRAMMY Museum in Los Angeles on October 16; and Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing Arts in Dallas on October 23. Additional program taking place in Las Vegas will be announced shortly. Additionally, making stops at each of the programs will be the Fiesta Tour McDonald's Music Experience — a traveling music exhibit that features memorabilia from more than 50 Latino artists who have contributed to the advancement of music, culture and education. The music exhibit is housed in a 70-plus foot vehicle and includes a walk-through display of artifacts and memorabilia and great moments in Latin music history. Organized by decades, from the 1950s to the present, the exhibit includes items from Celia Cruz, Thalía, Ricky Martin, Daddy Yankee, Alejandro Sanz, Pepe Aguilar, Beto Cuevas, Maná, and Ivy Queen just to name a few.
Theater ... El Teatro Campesino, the groundbreaking Chicano theater founded during the United Farm Workers' grape strike in 1965, visits Arizona State University to reprise a classic play about the lives of Mexican migrants.
First performed in 1974, La Carpa de los Rasquachis - or The Tent of the Underdogs - is a bilingual piece that sets a migrant worker's American journey against a mythic backdrop peopled by figures from folklore. The story is accompanied by musical performances of folk ballads, or corridos. Read the rest of the article by Kerry Lengel of the Arizona Republic at this link.
When: 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday, September 25 and 26.
Where: Galvin Playhouse, Arizona State University, 51 E. 10th St., Tempe, AZ
Admission: $7.
Details: 480-965-6447, herbergerinstitute.asu.edu/calendar.
Meanwhile ... Denver's Su Teatro announces the statewide tour of its production of Luis Valdez’s La Carpa de los Rasquachis, directed by Anthony J. Garcia. Beginning Wednesday, October 7 in Fort Collins, Su Teatro will tour the Carpa along the Front Range, down to the San Luis Valley, and possibly to the Western Slope. For more information, please contact John Kuebler, media coordinator, at [email protected] or 303.296.0219.
Here’s the schedule so far:
Saturday, October 3, 2009: Special sneak preview (location TBA)
Wednesday, October 7, 2009: Colorado State University in Fort Collins
Thursday, October 22, 2009: Regis University in Denver
Friday, October 23, 2009: Adams State University in Alamosa
Tuesday, October 27, 2009: Denver University
In addition to photographs by Ralph Lee Hopkins, outstanding images by American and Mexican photographers will also be shown. On view will be photographs of Baja California by Octavio Aburto, Pilar Artola, Miguel Angel de la Cueva, Jack Dykinga, Patricio Robles Gil, Flip Nicklin, Abe Ordover, and Julio Rodríguez Ramos.
These images bear witness to the great natural diversity in the 800-mile-long peninsula, says Annaliese Cassarino, curator and director of the museum's Ordover Gallery, where the exhibit will be housed.
Many people aren't aware of the immense diversity of the flora and fauna in Baja California, she says.
And that's because the peninsula is much more than the tourist destinations of Tijuana, Ensenada and Los Cabos.
There's the San Ignacio Lagoon, a sanctuary for whales that migrate from the Arctic Ocean every winter. There's the Sea of Cortez, considered to be the world's aquarium. And there are the deserts, brimming over with cactuses.
Tijuana's Rodríguez is participating in the exhibit with photographs of the vineyards and the wine culture of the Guadalupe Valley.
I tried to capture the grandeur of Baja California,” he says. “These photographs are proof that the peninsula is much more than just a region with rocks and thorns. Learn more here.
Read to succeed.
Later.
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By: Lisa Alvarado,
on 2/27/2009
Blog: La Bloga (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: fiction, novel, graphic novel, social commentary, LGBT, novelist, Cuban literature, Achy Obejas, Andres Montoya Poetry Prize, Add a tag
ACHY OBEJAS
My Note: Poet. Novelist. Translator. Teacher. Journalist. Achy Obejas is a bright light in our literary firmament, nationally and internationally. On a personal note, many years ago, she and I read with such glowing stars as Sandra Cisneros, Ana Castillo, Norma Alarcon, at a long-defunct women's bookstore, Jane Addams on Michigan Avenue, here in Chicago. Her work exudes a keen sense of humor, of irony, of compassion and is laced with the infinite small moments that make her poetry and her novels sing with the breath of real life.
THE BIO:
Achy Obejas was born in 1956 in Havana, Cuba, a city that she left six years later when she came to the United States with her parents after the Cuban revolution. She grew up in Michigan City, Indiana, and moved to Chicago in 1979. At the age of thirty-nine, Obejas returned to the island of her birth "for a brief visit and was seduced by a million things". The Cuba of her imagination and experience recur throughout her writings.
An accomplished journalist, Obejas worked briefly for the Chicago Sun-Times from 1980-81 and then for the Chicago Reader. She has also written for The Windy City Times, The Advocate, High Performance, and The Village Voice. Her coverage of the Chicago mayoral elections earned her the 1998 Peter Lisagor Award for political reporting. She currently is a cultural writer for the Chicago Tribune, where she has worked since 1991.
Obejas' poetry has appeared in a number of journals, including Conditions, Revista Chicano-Rique, and The Beloit Poetry Journal. In 1986, she received an NEA fellowship in poetry. Her short stories have also been widely published in journals and anthologies. Her novels include We Came All the Way from Cuba So You Could Dress Like This? (1994) and Memory Mambo (1996), both published by Cleis Press. Memory Mambo won a Lambda Award, and her third novel, Days of Awe (2001), also won the 2002 Lambda Award for Lesbian Fiction.
Although she has lived in the Midwestern United States since she was six, Obejas has always identified with Cuba. She says in an interview:
I was born in Havana and that single event pretty much defined the rest of my life. In the U.S., I'm Cuban, Cuban-American, Latina by virtue of being Cuban, a Cuban journalist, a Cuban writer, somebody's Cuban lover, a Cuban dyke, a Cuban girl on a bus, a Cuban exploring Sephardic roots, always and endlessly Cuba. I'm more Cuban here than I am in Cuba, by sheer contrast and repetition.
As an activist and writer, Obejas continues to explore her Cuban identity and experience, earning her an important place in the literature of the United States.
(Courtesy of Voices From the Gaps)
THE BOOK:
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
RUINS a novel of Cuba by Achy Obejas
$15.95, 300 pages, ISBN-13: 978-1-933354-69-9
Publication date: March 2009, A Trade Paperback Original, Fiction
A selection of Barnes & Noble's Discover Great New Writers program
*Scroll down for 2009 author events
A true believer is faced with a choice between love for his family and the Cuban Revolution.
"Daring, tough, and deeply compassionate, Achy Obejas's Ruins is a breathtaker. Obejas writes like an angel, which is to say: gloriously . . . one of Cuba’s most important writers.”
--Junot Díaz, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction
"In the Havana of Ruins, scarcity can only be fought with ingenuity, and the characters work very hard at the exquisite art of getting by. The plot rests on the schemes of its weary, obsessive, dreamy hero--a character so brilliantly drawn that he can’t be dismissed or forgotten. A tender and wildly accurate portrait, in a gem of a novel."
--Joan Silber, author of The Size of the World
USNAVY HAS ALWAYS BEEN A TRUE BELIEVER. When the Cuban Revolution triumphed in 1959, he was just a young man and eagerly signed on for all of its promises. But as the years have passed, the sacrifices have outweighed the glories and he’s become increasingly isolated in his revolutionary zeal. His friends openly mock him, his wife dreams of owning a car totally outside their reach, and his beloved fourteen-year-old daughter haunts the coast of Havana, staring north.
IN THE SUMMER OF 1994, a few years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the government allows Cubans to leave at will and on whatever will float. More than 100,000 flee--including Usnavy’s best friend. Things seem to brighten when he stumbles across what may or may not be a priceless Tiffany lamp that reveals a lost family secret and fuels his long repressed feelings . . . But now Usnavy is faced with a choice between love for his family and the Revolution that has shaped his entire life.
ACHY OBEJAS is the author of various books, including the award-winning novel Days of Awe. She is the editor of Akashic’s critically acclaimed crime-fiction anthology Havana Noir, and the translator (into Spanish) for Junot Diaz’s The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. Currently, she is the Sor Juana Writer in Residence at DePaul University in Chicago. She was born in Havana and continues to spend extended time there.
Praise for HAVANA NOIR edited by Achy Obejas:
"[A] remarkable collection . . . Throughout these 18 stories, current and former residents of Havana deliver gritty tales of depravation, depravity, heroic perseverance, revolution and longing in a city mythical and widely misunderstood."
--Publishers Weekly
2009 AUTHOR EVENTS:
--Sat., February 21, 2pm--EVANSVILLE, IN--Barnes & Noble, 624 S. Green River Rd.
--Tues., February 24, 8pm--MIAMI BEACH, FL--Books & Books, 933 Lincoln Rd.
--Sat., February 28, 3pm--MISHAWAKA, IN--Barnes & Noble, 4601 Grape Rd.
*Cosponsored by the Institute for Latino Studies at the University of Notre Dame
--Thurs., March 5, 7:30pm--CHICAGO, IL--Women & Children First, 5233 N. Clark
*Book release event
--Sat., March 7, 3pm--LAFAYETTE, IN--Barnes & Noble, 2323 Sagamore Parkway S.
--Mon., March 9, 7pm--MADISON, WI--Barnes & Noble West, 7433 Mineral Point Rd.
--Tues., March 10, 7pm--IOWA CITY, IA--Prairie Lights Books, 15 S. Dubuque St.
--Wed., March 18, 7pm--ST. LOUIS, MO--Left Bank Books, 399 N. Euclid Ave.
--Thurs., March 19, 7pm--CINCINNATI, OH--Joseph-Beth Booksellers, 2692 Madison Rd.
--Fri., March 20, 7pm--ASHEVILLE, NC--Malaprop's, 55 Haywood St.
--Sat., March 21, 3pm--DURHAM, NC--Barnes & Noble, 5400 New Hope Commons
--Sun., March 22, 6:30-8pm--WASHINGTON, DC--Busboys and Poets at 5th & K, 1025 5th St. NW
*With Achy Obejas (RUINS) and Robert Arellano (HAVANA LUNAR)
--Mon., March 23, 6:30-8pm--BALTIMORE, MD--Enoch Pratt Free Library (Central Branch, Poe Room), 400 Cathedral St.
*With Achy Obejas (RUINS) and Robert Arellano (HAVANA LUNAR)
--Tues., March 24, 7pm--NEW YORK, NY--Bluestockings, 172 Allen St.
*With Achy Obejas (RUINS) and Robert Arellano (HAVANA LUNAR)
--Wed., March 25, 7:30pm--NEW YORK, NY--92nd St. Y, 1395 Lexington Ave.
*With Achy Obejas (RUINS) and Robert Arellano (HAVANA LUNAR)
--Thurs., March 26, 8pm--METUCHEN, NJ--Raconteur Books, 431 Main St.
*With Achy Obejas (RUINS) and Robert Arellano (HAVANA LUNAR)
--Fri., March 27, 7:30pm--PROVIDENCE, RI--Ada Books, 717 Westminster St.
*With Achy Obejas (RUINS) and Robert Arellano (HAVANA LUNAR)
--Tues., May 5, 7:30pm--PORTLAND, OR--Powell's, 1005 W. Burnside
*Akashic All-Stars event with Achy Obejas (RUINS), Maggie Estep (ALICE FANTASTIC), and Robert Arellano (HAVANA LUNAR)
--Thurs., May 7, 7pm--SAN FRANCISCO, CA--City Lights, 261 Columbus Ave.
*Akashic All-Stars event with Achy Obejas (RUINS), Maggie Estep (ALICE FANTASTIC), and Robert Arellano (HAVANA LUNAR)
--Fri., May 8, 7pm--LOS ANGELES, CA--Book Soup, 8818 Sunset Blvd.
*Akashic All-Stars event with Achy Obejas (RUINS), Maggie Estep (ALICE FANTASTIC), and Robert Arellano (HAVANA LUNAR)
--Sat., May 9, 7:30pm--SAN FRANCISCO, CA--Make-Out Room, 3225 22nd St.
*Part of the "Writers with Drink" reading series
Contact: Johanna Ingalls/Akashic Books
232 Third St., Suite B404
Brooklyn, NY 11215
Tel: 718-643-9193/Fax: 718-643-9195
[email protected]
www.akashicbooks.com
Lisa Alvarado
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