33 REVOLUTIONS

SANCHEZ GUEVARA, CANEK

a young man's political awakening takes shape in the aftermath of castro's revolution in this prayer of a novel by the grandson of che guevara (cleaver magazine). at the dawn of communist cuba, our unnamed hero, a young black cuban man, loses his father to death and his mother to emigration. now he spends much of his time with his russian neighbor, discovering the pleasures of reading. the books he reads gradually open his eyes to the incongruity between party slogans and the oppressive reality that surrounds him: the office routine; the daily complaints of his colleagues; his own obsessive thoughts which circulate around his mind like a broken record. every day he photographs the spontaneous eruptions of dissent on the streets and witnesses the sad spectacle of young people crowding onto makeshift rafts to escape the island. his frustration grows until a day when he declares his unwillingness to become an informer. and this is when his real troubles begin. not since reinaldo arenas has a cuban literary voice arrived on american shores with such beaten madness, and sense of personal desperation.--cleaver magazine