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| Author: Pedro Juan/ Wimmer Gutierrez | Translator: Natasha Wimmer |
| Format: | Paperback |
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Product Summary
| "Dirty Havana Trilogy" chronicles the misadventures of Pedro Juan, a former journalist now living hand to mouth in and around Cuba, half disgusted and half fascinated by the depths to which he has sunk. Pedro Juan's unsentimental yet sympathetic eye captures a shocking underbelly of today's Cuba. Banned in Cuba, Gutierrez's picaresque novel is a fierce, loving tribute to Havana and the defiant, desperate way of life that flourishes amid its decay. |
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From the Publisher:
Banned in Cuba but celebrated throughout the Spanish-speaking world, this picaresque novel in stories chronicles the misadventures of Pedro Juan, a former Cuban journalist living from hand to mouth in the squalor of contemporary Havana, half disgusted and half fascinated by the depths to which he has sunk. Like the lives of so many of his neighbors in the crumbling, once-elegant apartment houses that line Havana's waterfront, Pedro Juan's days and nights have been reduced by the so-called special times -- the harsh recession that followed the Soviet Union's collapse -- to the struggle of surviving the daily grit through the escapist pursuit of sex. Pedro Juan scrapes by under the shadow of hunger -- all the while observing his lovers and friends, strangers on the street, and their suffering with an unsentimental, mocking, yet sympathetic eye. Banned in Cuba but celebrated throughout the Spanish-speaking world, this picaresque novel in stories chronicles the misadventures of Pedro Juan, a former Cuban journalist living from hand to mouth in the squalor of contemporary Havana, half disgusted and half fascinated by the depths to which he has sunk. Like the lives of so many of his neighbors in the crumbling, once-elegant apartment houses that line Havana's waterfront, Pedro Juan's days and nights have been reduced by the so-called special times -- the harsh recession that followed the Soviet Union's collapse -- to the struggle of surviving the daily grit through the escapist pursuit of sex. Pedro Juan scrapes by under the shadow of hunger -- all the while observing his lovers and friends, strangers on the street, and their suffering with an unsentimental, mocking, yet sympathetic eye. |
This collection of connected short stories is set in Havana, where an ex-journalist named (like the author) Pedro Juan is a garbageman, dope-seller, and hustler. A New York Times Notable Book for 2001.
"[G]rotesquely compelling....DIRTY HAVANA TRILOGY goes on too long, but Pedro Juan Gutiérrez appears destined to become a cult writer." - Stephen Henighan 03/16/2001
Chapter OneNew Things in My LifeEarly that morning, there was a pink postcard sticking out of my mailbox, from Mark Pawson in London. In big letters he had written, “June 5, 1993, some bastard stole the front wheel of my bicycle.” A year later, and that business was still bothering him. I thought about the little club near Mark's apartment, where every night Rodolfo would strip and do a sexy dance while I banged out weird tropical-improvisational music on bongo drums, shaking rattles, making guttural noises, trying anything else I could think of. We had fun, drank free beer, and got paid twenty-five pounds a night. Too bad it couldn't have lasted longer. But black dancers were a hot commodity, and Rodolfo left for Liverpool to teach modern dance. I was broke, and I stayed at Mark's until I got bored and came back. Now I was training myself to take nothing seriously |