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More copies of this ISBN:Waiting for Snow in Havana: Confessions of a Cuban Boyby Carlos Eire
Synopses & ReviewsPublisher Comments:A childhood in a privileged household in 1950s Havana is joyous and cruel, like any other — but with exotic differences. Lizards roam the house and grounds. Fights aren't waged with snowballs but with breadfruit. The narrator's father, a judge, is certain that in a past life he was Louis XVI and his wife Marie Antoinette. In a home crammed with portraits of Jesus that speak to him in dreams and nightmares, young Carlos Eire searches for secret proofs of the existence of God, determined to best St. Thomas Aquinas by coming up with more than five. Then, in January 1959, the world changes: President Batista is suddenly gone, a cigar-smoking guerrilla — Fidel Castro — has taken his place, and Christmas is canceled. The echo of firing squads is everywhere. And, one by one, the author's schoolmates begin to disappear — spirited away to the United States. Carlos will end up there himself, alone, never to see his father again. The journey will test his soul. Narrated with the urgency of a confession, Waiting for Snow in Havana is both an ode to a paradise lost and an exorcism. More than that, it captures the terrible beauty of those times in our lives when we are certain we have died — and then are somehow, miraculously, reborn. Review:"As imaginatively wrought as the finest piece of fiction." Publishers Weekly Review:"Between mercurial and leisurely, lush and thorny, jumbled and crystalline, Yale historian Eire's recollection of his Cuban boyhood is to be savored." Kirkus Reviews Review:"What is powerful and lasting about the book is his evocation of childhood...and his extraordinary literary ability." The Los Angeles Times Review:"Eire's tone is so urgent and so vividly personal...that his unsparing indictments of practically everyone concerned, including himself, seem all the more remarkable." New Yorker Review:"[C]omplex, introspective....In this open, honest, and at times angry memoir, Eire bares his soul completely and captivates the reader in the process." Booklist Synopsis:This haunting memoir of the Cuban Revolution, seen through the eyes of a small boy, is the heartbreaking story of the author's privileged childhood in pre-Revolution Havana, and how he lost everything, including his father. Synopsis:"Have mercy on me, Lord, I am Cuban." In 1962, Carlos Eire was one of 14,000 children airlifted out of Cuba — exiled from his family, his country, and his own childhood by the revolution. The memories of Carlos's life in Havana, cut short when he was just eleven years old, are at the heart of this stunning, evocative, and unforgettable memoir. Waiting for Snow in Havana is both an exorcism and an ode to a paradise lost. For the Cuba of Carlos's youth — with its lizards and turquoise seas and sun-drenched siestas — becomes an island of condemnation once a cigar-smoking guerrilla named Fidel Castro ousts President Batista on January 1, 1959. Suddenly the music in the streets sounds like gunfire. Christmas is made illegal, political dissent leads to imprisonment, and too many of Carlos's friends are leaving Cuba for a place as far away and unthinkable as the United States. Carlos will end up there, too, and fulfill his mother's dreams by becoming a modern American man — even if his soul remains in the country he left behind. Narrated with the urgency of a confession, Waiting for Snow in Havana is a eulogy for a native land and a loving testament to the collective spirit of Cubans everywhere. About the AuthorBorn in Havana in 1950, Carlos Eire left his homeland in 1962, one of fourteen thousand unaccompanied children airlifted out of Cuba by Operation Pedro Pan. After living in a series of foster homes in Florida and Illinois, he was reunited with his mother in Chicago in 1965. His father, who died in 1976, never left Cuba. After earning his Ph.D. at Yale University in 1979, Carlos Eire taught at St. John's University in Minnesota for two years and at the University of Virginia for fifteen. He is now the T. Lawrason Riggs Professor of History and Religious Studies at Yale University. He lives in Guilford, Connecticut, with his wife, Jane, and their three children. This is his first book without footnotes. What Our Readers Are SayingAdd a comment for a chance to win!
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