Adios, Happy Homeland!

In this follow-up to her beloved, prize-winning debut, In Cuba I Was a German Shepherd, a New York Times Notable Book of the Year, Ana Men ndez delivers a liberating, magical, and modern take on the idea of migration and flight.

Adios, Happy Homeland is a wildly innovative collection of interlinked tales that challenge our preconceptions of storytelling. This critical look at the life of the Cuban writer pulls apart and reassembles the myths that have come to define her culture, blending illusion with reality and exploring themes of art, family, language, superstition, and the overwhelming need to escape--from the island, from memory, from stereotype, and, ultimately, from the self. We're taken into a sick man's fever dream as he waits for a train beneath a strange night sky, into a community of parachute makers facing the end in a windy town that no longer exists, and onto a Cuban beach where the body of a boy last seen on a boat bound for America turns out to be a giant jellyfish.

With Adios Happy Homeland , Men ndez puts a contemporary twist on the troubled history of Cuba and offers a wry and poignant perspective on the conundrum of cultural displacement. Smart, accessible, and literary, it is a captivating portrayal of how stories are translated, (mis)interpreted, and shaped across time and traditions.

Binding Type: Paperback
Publisher: Grove Press, Black Cat
Published: 08/02/2011
ISBN: 9780802170842
Pages: 268
Weight: 0.70lbs
Size: 7.10h x 5.00w x 0.90d

Review Citations: Library Journal 03/01/2011 pg. 56
Library Journal Prepub Alert 03/01/2011 pg. 56
Publishers Weekly 06/13/2011
Library Journal 06/15/2011 pg. 79
Kirkus Reviews 07/01/2011