Edmundo Desnoes (–2023)

This brief novel (only 110 pages, including the three short stories "written" by the narrator) extends from the end of Bautista through the Cuban missile crisis; it is an indictment of the emotional, intellectual, cultural, and political "underdevelopment" of Cuba before and after the revolution. Towards the end, the narrator (identified as Desnoes) says, "I write in vain. Everything is meaningless. Nothing has happened. but I feel asphyxiated. People talk and move about...as if war were a game. ... They're fools." My friend, Al Schaller, provides an excellent translation.… (altro)