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Two estranged sisters with a past as complicated as their present acrimoniously reunite in 1990s Cuba to confront the riddle of family amidst the scars of political upheaval In the summer of 1993, Yuri, a teenage orphan, lives with her strict, religious Aunt Ruth in a Havana suburb when Mariela, a thirty-four-year-old artist, arrives from the U.S. with a shocking revelation. She claims to be Yuri''s sister, insisting that she and Yuri share a mother and that Ruth is nothing more than Mariela’s "kidnapper." Mariela has spent the past three decades in American orphanages and has returned to Cuba to reclaim her roots and culture, make art, and perhaps seek vengeance on Ruth for sending her to America through Operation Pedro Pan. Yuri is both fascinated and repulsed by the young, glamourous, and aggrieved Mariela. When Ruth is jailed for unknown charges, Yuri falls further into Mariela’s mercurial orbit.;; Through Yuri’s reminiscent narration (from Havana, to NYC, to Miami, and back to Havana),
About the author
IVONNE LAMAZARES was born in Havana. She left Cuba at the age of thirteen and settled in Florida. Her first novel, The Sugar Island, was translated into seven languages. Her short fiction and nonfiction have appeared in Latina magazine, The Southern Review, Michigan Quarterly Review, The Florida Review, and elsewhere. Lamazares is the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship and three Florida Individual Artist Fellowships. She lives in Miami and teaches writing at Miami Dade College.
