I’ve been to Cuba once, in 2001. It’s not something I talk about a lot (or have ever written about publically) because 1) Americans were not supposed to go there, and 2), it was a lifetime ago in many ways. What has stayed with me all these years is the beauty of the country. In fact, I remember thinking that if the place – Havana is the only place I really saw -was as beautiful as it could be (meaning the buildings were dilapidated etc.) I wouldn’t be able to stand it.

For nearly 17 years I have wanted to return to this beautiful and complicated place, and last week, I did, sort of, thanks to a new book by Chanel Cleeton  Next Year in Havana. 

“Ninety miles separate Cuba from Key West, the southernmost tip of the United States. Ninety miles that might as well be infinite.”

This book addresses all of Cuba’s complications, including its history and politics using a good story that includes mystery and romance! Moving back and forth between two time periods, (almost present day) and pre-Fidel, the story is told by two narrators:

1958: Elisa is the daughter of a sugar baron in Cuba. She is in high-society who mostly supports the reigning Batista, until she falls in love with a revolutionary. But then her family is forced to flee the country.

2017: The granddaughter of Elisa, Marisol,  grew up in Miami and returns to Cuba after Elisa’s death with instructions to spread her ashes. When she arrives there, under the premise of being a journalist, she learns more about the country of her heritage and more than she ever knew about her grandma.

Even though both narrators are upper class, there are enough other characters in different situations portrayed here that I feel it gives a good variety of perspectives of how life was and is.

As I said previously, I personally loved this book so much because it took me back to some places in Havana, most of all the Malecon – this is the seawall that goes for miles around the city of Havana. It is a beautiful place to watch a sunset and watch people. But I think anyone who likes to learn about new different places through historical fiction would enjoy this story of forbidden loves, friendship, and how people choose to love their country in different ways.

I wrote about my own experiences in Havana a long time ago. One article I probably could have published somewhere, but I never did, and now years have gone by and I thought it would be outdated. Sadly, I don’t think it is, because from this book it doesn’t seem like much has changed in the country in the past 17 years.

Cleeton writes honestly about this beautiful yet complicated place:

“There’s a freedom in life here – no need to check status updates, or obsess over someone’s posted photos, or spend time crafting a cleverly worded line to share with hundreds of followers and friends. And at the same time, that freedom is an incredible indulgence, the abstention of a life available to me, the choice of it, whereas for the Cubans who live without the barrage of statuses about how much someone loves their spouse or that picture of a friend from a grade school climbing Machu Picchu, arms flung out against the backdrop of a fortuitously setting sun, there is no choice. No freedom. Their exile from these things isn’t self-imposed; it was thrust upon them by a government that has been in power their entire lives. And so, the beauty of life here – the simplicity of it – is also the tragedy of it.”

The title is the saying the narrator’s family would toast to year after year, hoping they could return, when things change. We are all still waiting for things to change…

So I will also start raising my mojito to “next year in Havana.”

 

 

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