Spared Angola: Memories from a Cuban American Childhood is a powerful and original first collection of autobiographical stories, essays and poems. The successful novelist here lays bare the makings of his conscience as a writer and human being, detailing the psychological pressure of male expectations, family gender battles, emigration and adjusting to a new culture.
Hoping to spare their only child the fate of thousands of young Cubans conscripted to fight in the revolution in Angola, Suárez’s parents left Cuba, unaware of the sentence destiny would impose instead. Suárez’s compelling piece invokes the agony and frustration borne of growing up in terminal exile and cultural limbo. From anguish and turmoil, the artist has wrought one of the most eloquent and commanding voices of contemporary American literature.
- Cover
- Title page
- Copyright page
- Acknowledgments
- Contents
- Spared Angola
- Donatila's Unrequited Love Remedy
- Teresa La Pasamanos
- Sapos/Bullfrogs
- What Was Done to Tum Bulls into Oxen
- La Ceiba: Tree of Life
- The Dirt Eaters
- Tejedor y su grupo
- Manuel & Josefina
- Scenes From an Otherwise Normal Childhood
- Talo & the Coupe de Ville
- Cuca
- Luz & Balmaseda Street Comer Games
- Lazarito & the Habanero Chilis
- Ricardito
- Jicotea/Turtle
- Bitterness
- Uncle Isidoro
- Bay of Pigs Revisited
- Pin Pan Pun
- Leo
- Yiya & Gustavo
- Gutierrez
- The End of the World according to Babio
- La Santa
- The Goat Incident
- Xagua Castle, Cienfuegos
- Izquierdo
- In Praise of Mentors or How I Became a Cuban-American Writer
- The Mystery of Closed Doors
- American Sidewalk
- No Nocturne for the Ravaged
- Flash Flesh
- Lucha Libre
- Milagros La Flaca
- 1965 Dodge Dart
- Just Talk
- Half Time
- Animalia
- After the Accident
- Tito the Barber (? -1995)
- Mofongo
- Teeth
- The Ways of Guilt
- How My Days Go in Suburbia
- The Trouble with Frogs
- The Halves
- Brújula/Compass
- Glossary