Search results for ""Author Dick Cluster""

Celebrated Ecuadorian author Gabriela Alemán's first work to appear in English: a noir, feminist eco-thriller in which venally corrupt politicians and greedy land speculators finally get their just comeuppance!"In the squalid settlement of Poso Wells, women have been regularly disappearing, but the authorities have shown little interest. When the leading presidential candidate comes to town, he and his entourage are electrocuted in a macabre accident witnessed by a throng of astonished spectators. The sole survivor—next in line for the presidency—inexplicably disappears from sight.Gustavo Varas, a principled journalist, picks up the trail, which leads him into a violent, lawless underworld. Bella Altamirano, a fearless local, is on her own crusade to pierce the settlement's code of silence, ignoring repeated death threats. It turns out that the disappearance of the candidate and those of the women are intimately connected, and not just to a local crime wave, but to a multinational magnate's plan to plunder the country's cloud forest preserve.Praise for Poso Wells:"The story is a condemnation not only of the corrupt businessmen and the criminal gangs that rule Poso Wells but also of the violence against women that plagues Latin America's real slums."—The New Yorker"One part Thomas Pynchon, one part Gabriel García Marquez, and one part Raymond Chandler, Alemán’s novel contains mystery, horror, humor, absurdity, and political commentary … A concoction of political thriller and absurdist literary mystery that never fails to entertain."—Kirkus Reviews"A wild, successful satire of Ecuadorian politics and supernatural encounters. … Alemán’s singular voice keeps the ride fresh and satisfying."—Publishers Weekly"Poso Wells is ironic, audacious, and fierce. But what is it, exactly? A satire? A scifi novel? A political detective yarn? Or the purest reality of contemporary Latin America. It's unclassifiable—as all great books are."—Samanta Schweblin, author of Fever Dream"Poso Wells is brilliant, audacious, doubtlessly playful and at the same time so dark and bitter. A truly unforgettable book."—Alejandro Zambra, author of Multiple Choice

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"Serious but easily readable. The History of Havana employs conventional documentary, written and visual sources and a variety of testimonials from throughout the world to bring to life the complex portraits and challenges of contemporary Havana." —Harry Belafonte Since its founding in 1519, Havana has drawn people from all over the world, including explorers, immigrant, refugees, and the exiled, to create a melting pot of influences and cultures––and a very distinct history. From its colonial roots to its communist revolution, authors Dick Cluster and Rafael Hernández examine not only the ruptures in the city's life, but its continuities as well. The traditions that make the city unique, like its idiosyncratic combination of territorialism and hospitality or its proclivity for protest, are as much a drive for change as an integral element of its character. Drawing on oral histories and cultural artifacts alike, this history acknowledges the rich and artfully selected stories of the citizens, from their fascinating exploits to their grand successes, to be as significant to the very fabric of the city as its dynamic culture and intriguing politics, making it a superbly well-rounded account of the most alluring city in the Caribbean. With grace and precision, in this updated and revised second edition of their classic history of the city Cluster and Hernández offer the divergent but productive perspectives of the American and the Cuban in lyrical and accessible prose on Cuba's magical capital. Generously illustrated with black-and-white photographs and maps.

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"Mylene Fernandez offers us a magnificent gift. Her story of lost love and the difficult pursuit of literature is at the same time an X-ray of life in Havana, set in a present where glimpses of the future have not yet arrived."--Leonardo Padura, author of The Man Who Loved Dogs and the Mario Conde novels of Havana In contemporary Havana, "Do I stay or do I go?" is always the question, and love doesn't necessarily conquer all. A cautious, reserved professor of Spanish Literature, Marian has no idea that her quiet life is about to be turned upside down. When she's asked to review the work of a young, ambitious first-time novelist, she meets Daniel, and their love affair leads her to question both the choices she's made so far in her life and the opportunities she might yet still have. Theirs is the story of an intense and impossible love, set in today's Havana, a city where there can be no plans, where chance is the order of the day and a fierce sense of loyalty and pride coexists with the desire to live beyond the island's isolation. "The fresh panorama of Cuban society today is painted without taboos or constraints, with a faith in human possibilities, and above all with a courage that stems from what is most legitimate and durable in ourselves."--Nancy Morejon, author of Looking Within: Selected Poems and Piedra Pulida "A Corner of the World is about desires and dreams, and, of course, about love."--Achy Obejas, author of Days of Awe and Ruins "Like the best of Truman Capote, another master of the short novel, Mylene Fernandez gives us a cast of unforgettable characters: contradictory, complex, and human."--Fernando Perez, director of Suite Habana, Life Is to Whistle, and Madagascar "To read this book is to encounter one of the best and most intimate works of Cuban literature of the 21st century."--Mabel Cuesta, author of Cuba post-sovietica: un cuerpo narrado en clave de mujer "A sad, erotic, tender, and sometimes ironic tale of passion and desertion...the city becomes a co-protagonist, a confidante, a point of departure and return, and of waiting."-Senel Paz, novelist and screenwriter of Strawberry and Chocolate, Things I Left in Havana, and In the Sky with Diamonds

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"If baseball is really a metaphor for life, then Kill the Ampaya -- Dick Cluster's wonderful collection of Latin American baseball stories -- is an astonishing record of its beauty and coarseness, redemption and tragedy. You don't have to be a baseball fan to appreciate these stories, each one hinged on baseball directly or indirectly, and delight in this reading."-Achy Obejas, author of The Tower of Antilles and Other Stories "These are stories we have lived...Some are funny, some cruel or violent, but in the end they are part of our culture that makes us act the way we do. They make me think of the millions of stories that got lost behind us." -Omar Vizquel, from Venezuela, one of baseball's all-time best fielding shortstops who played for the Seattle Mariners, Cleveland Indians, San Francisco Giants, Texas Rangers, Chicago White Sox, and Toronto Blue Jays. "Baseball is in the soul of millions in Puerto Rico and the other countries that play the game with a Latino flair. These stories are portraits of its place in our lives." -Benjie Molina, former Texas Rangers catcher and first base coach. A rich variety of baseball fiction exists south of the Florida Straits and the Rio Grande, but almost none available in English. This collection translates for the first time stories ranging from the highly literary to the vernacular. These inventive and entertaining stories reveal the place of baseball in Latin America. Mixing fan and fandom, baseball and politics, rural and urban life, sexism and poverty, Kill the Ampaya! reveals how baseball shapes the social fabric of everyday Latin American life. The collection includes well known writers such as Leonardo Padura from Cuba (The Man Who Loved Dogs), Sergio Ramirez from Nicaragua (Divine Punishment, A Thousand Deaths Plus One). Others are well known writers in their home countries such as Arturo Arango and Eduardo del Llano in Cuba, Alexis Gomez Rosa and Jose Bobadilla in the Dominican Republic, Yolanda Arroyo Pizarro in Puerto Rico, Vicente Lenero in Mexico as well as emerging literary figures such as Salvador Flejan and Rodrigo Blanco Calderon in Venezuela, Sandra Tavarez and Daniel Reyes German in the D.R., Carmen Hernandez Pena in Cuba.

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Finalist for the Republic of Consciousness PrizeFamily Album is Ecuadorian author Gabriela Alemán’s rollicking follow-up to her acclaimed English-language debut, Poso Wells.Alemán is known for her spirited and sardonic take on the fatefully interconnected—and often highly compromised—forces at work in present-day South America, and particularly in Ecuador. In this collection of eight hugely entertaining short stories, she teases tropes of hardboiled detective fiction, satire, and adventure narratives to recast the discussion of national identity. A muddy brew of pop-culture and pop-folklore yields intriguing, lesser-known episodes of contemporary Ecuadorian history, along with a rich cast of unforgettable characters whose intimate stories open up onto a vista of Ecuador’s place on the world stage.From a pair of deep-sea divers using Robinson Crusoe’s map of a shipwreck to locate sunken treasure in the Galápagos Archipelago, to a night with the husband of Ecuador’s most infamous expat, Lorena Bobbitt, this series of cracked “family portraits” provides a cast of picaresque heroes and anti-heroes in stories that sneak up on a reader before they know what’s happened: they’ve learned a great deal about a country whose more well known exports—soccer, coffee and cocoa—mask an intriguing national story that’s ripe for the telling.One of The Millions Most Anticipated Books for 2022!"Ecuadorian writer Alemán’s sparkling collection (after the novel Poso Wells) brims with humor and adventure."—Publishers Weekly"Plays with tropes ranging from the Robinson Crusoe story to the classic betrayed-wife setup to wrestle with the impossible-to-decode oddness of human life, which old stories can only hide for so long."—Lily Meyer, NPR"It takes a rare and talented writer to create a cast of characters who each feel so unique, distinct, and whose stories unravel unexpectedly while also feeling inevitable, exactly right. Thoughtful and subversive, with Family Album, Alemán has given us a gift."—Jean Kyoung Frazier, author of Pizza Girl"Divers, adventurers, wrestlers, athletes: a diverse array of people come to light in these stories to insist again and again in challenging the weight of the written letter. Gabriela Alemán's stories inhabit the past to work through its possible versions. Her characters understand that History is a form of desire and the truth is not a house but a patina covering a place that has ceased to exist."—Yuri Herrera, author of A Silent Fury: The El Bordo Mine Fire"Gabriela Alemán's stories unravel a rich and intriguing universe in which nothing, and no one, is what it seems."—Pilar Quintana, author of The Bitch"These stories are like lizards lying on rocks in the sun. When you try to pick one up it darts away and disappears. Sometimes a tail comes off in your hand or the thing bites your fingers and drops of blood decorate the rock. Best read while listening to Julio Jaramillo sing 'Amor sin Esperanza' and 'Hojas Muertas.'"—Barry Gifford, author of Sailor & Lula: The Complete Novels"Gabriela Alemán writes beautiful, sly, enigmatic stories originating in a rogues gallery of real life legends, including El Santo and John Wayne Bobbitt, as well as lesser known and invented souls, all of them struggling against the silent—or is it hostile?—backdrop of Ecuador’s past and present. Family Album is a mordantly funny and haunting collection."—Zachary Lazar, author of Vengeance

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