Dirty Havana Trilogy: A Novel in Stories - Softcover

Gutierrez, Pedro Juan

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0060006897 ISBN 13: 9780060006891

Publisher: Ecco Press, 2002

Synopsis

Banned in Cuba but celebrated throughout the Spanish-speaking world, this picaresque novel in stories chronicles the misadventures of Pedro Juan, a former Cuban journalist living from hand to mouth in the squalor of contemporary Havana, half disgusted and half fascinated by the depths to which he has sunk. Like the lives of so many of his neighbors in the crumbling, once-elegant apartment houses that line Havana's waterfront, Pedro Juan's days and nights have been reduced by the so-called special times -- the harsh recession that followed the Soviet Union's collapse -- to the struggle of surviving the daily grit through the escapist pursuit of sex. Pedro Juan scrapes by under the shadow of hunger -- all the while observing his lovers and friends, strangers on the street, and their suffering with an unsentimental, mocking, yet sympathetic eye.

About this title

Product Description:

Dirty Havana Trilogy Pedro Juan was a reporter in Havana, but as existence in Cuba and his own life begin to collapse around him, he gives up the farce of a daily job, and begins to "train himself to take nothing seriously". His training involves lots of sex, drugs, rum, jazz, beat literature and street philosophy. Full description

Review:

'Grotesquely compelling... Pedro Juan Gutierrez appears destined to become a cult writer.' --Times Literary Supplement

'A tale of human ingenuity and hidden hopefulness overcoming near-insuperable odds.' --Guardian

'One of the sexiest books I have read in a long time.' --David Profumo, Literary Review

About this edition

• Publisher: Ecco Press
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 0060006897
• ISBN 13: 9780060006891
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 400