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Tower of the Antilles
Tower of the Antilles | Achy Obejas
6 posts | 3 read | 5 to read
"Questions of personal and national identity percolate through the stories in Obejas's memorable short fiction collection, most of which is set in Cuba, the author's birthplace...These 10 stories show Obejas's talent, illuminating Cuban culture and the innermost lives of her characters."--Publishers Weekly"By turns searing and subtly magical, the stories in Obejas' vividly imagined collection are propelled by her characters' contradictory feelings about and unnerving experiences in Cuba...For all the human tumult and deftly sketched and reverberating historical and cultural contexts that Obejas incisively creates in these poignant, alarming tales, she also offers lyrical musings on the mysteries of the sea and the vulnerability of islands and the body. Obejas' plots are ambushing, her characters startling, her metaphors fresh, her humor caustic, and her compassion potent in these intricate and haunting stories of displacement, loss, stoicism, and realization."--Booklist"Achy Obejas's collection is about fictional Cuban migrants who never quite escape the land they've left."--Electric Literature"It's a joy to return to Obejas's work; her prose, crisp, crystalline, and controlled, covering the wide spectrums of anger, desire, longing, and wonder in the face of immigration...Obejas sneaks under the skin, revealing emotions tied up at the dock, cuts the rope, and sets them free. The Tower of the Antilles proves, once again, why Achy Obejas is one of the most important Cuban writers of our time."--The Miami Rail"This summer is the perfect opportunity to get to know the work of this Cuban-American writer. The stories collected in her new book tell the story of various Cubas--Cuba throughout the ages, Cuba from different perspectives, but always Cuba in all its vibrant, troubled, conflicting beauty."--Barnes & Noble/B&N Reads, included in"12 Must-Read Indie Books Coming This Summer""Obejas presents heartbreaking dramas in the most elegant language...Obejas strung ten story islands together in The Tower of the Antilles to create an archipelago, persuasively articulating the contrast between power and the lack of it--her tales fluently translating the Cuban search for identity."--Woven Tale PressPraise for Achy Obejas: "Obejas writes like an angel, which is to say: gloriously...one of Cuba's most important writers."--Junot Diaz The Cubans in Achy Obejas's story collection The Tower of the Antilles are haunted by an island: the island they fled, the island they've created, the island they were taken to or forced from, the island they long for, the island they return to, and the island that can never be home again. In "Superman," several possible story lines emerge about a 1950s Havana sex-show superstar who disappeared as soon as the revolution triumphed. "North/South" portrays a migrant family trying to cope with separation, lives on different hemispheres, and the eventual disintegration of blood ties. "The Cola of Oblivion" follows the path of a young woman who returns to Cuba, and who inadvertently uncorks a history of accommodation and betrayal among the family members who stayed behind during the revolution. In the title story, "The Tower of the Antilles," an interrogation reveals a series of fantasies about escape and a history of futility. With language that is both generous and sensual, Obejas writes about lives beset by events beyond individual control, and poignantly captures how history and fate intrude on even the most ordinary of lives.
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charl08
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In what language do you think?

29 likes1 stack add
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Simona
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Of course, understandable.

charl08 Just read this today- and thought the same thing! 5y
Simona @charl08 In general, I don‘t lend my books ... my books, my rules 🤷‍♀️ 5y
56 likes2 comments
review
rockpools
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Mehso-so

I found this difficult!

From the snippet at the end, I may have got on better with her novels rather than short stories. Several were written with non-linear timelines, and I guess I needed more knowledge than I have to 'get' them fully.

The writing's great, and the Sound Catalog will stay with me - the story of Dulce who emigrates from Cuba and builds a new life while losing her hearing. Overall tho' I just didn't connect with the characters.

rockpools I read this for #readaroundtheworld #cuba, and might need to borrow some other recommendations! @jenp 7y
batsy I'm reading this, which reads like a 19th century novel and is interesting, but is a chunkster and exhausting (coz it depicts the racism vividly) 7y
batsy I meant to say, it *is* a 19th-century novel 😄 7y
See All 12 Comments
rockpools @batsy Was this the one someone described as a Cuban Ulysses? I might come back to it - I'm crazy slow at epic reads, but I'd like to try it at some point. 7y
batsy @RachelO No, that's this one. Can't squeeze it in this month, either but hope to get to it at some point. 7y
batsy Wish there was a way to edit comments! This tagged book has a blurb 7y
rockpools @batsy OK, that was it - thank you. I got confused! In that case I'm definitely stacking your Ceclia Valdes. Are you on android? On Iphone you can tap your own comments and there's an edit option... 7y
batsy @RachelO Yes, I'm on Android and unfortunately there's no option to edit comments 😞 7y
rockpools @batsy gaah! How annoying! 7y
tpixie @batsy if you get a chance, add it as a suggestion! 7y
batsy @tpixie Thanks, I just did 👍 7y
tpixie @batsy 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻 7y
39 likes12 comments
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prowlix
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Pickpick

This story collections has some of the most vivid characters in compact stories. Cubans in Cuba, trying to leave Cuba, and trying to built a new life in the US. The writing is beautiful and the perspective one that seldom gets attention. It's been a long time since I e found a story collection where I loved each story but I did with this one!

#recommendsday 🇨🇺 #Cuba

Bibliogeekery Sounds great! Thanks for the recommendation! 7y
ReadingEnvy Is the author Cuban too? 7y
prowlix @ReadingEnvy yes! She was born in Havana and also works as a Spanish/English translator. Apparently she translated Junot Díaz into Spanish but I think most of her work was written in English 7y
prowlix @Bibliogeekery your welcome! 7y
ReadingEnvy @prowlix awesome, I stacked it! 7y
36 likes5 stack adds5 comments
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prowlix
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💗💗💗💗

blurb
prowlix
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Next up - such a pretty edition! This slim collection of short stories is by a Cuban American author and translator. Hopefully this will help my ADD reading slump