Waiting for Snow in Havana: Confessions of a Cuban Boy - Softcover

Eire, Carlos

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0743246411 ISBN 13: 9780743246415

Publisher: Free Press, 2003

Synopsis

Waiting for Snow in Havana Have mercy on me, Lord, I am Cuban. In 1962, Carlos Eire was one of 14,000 children airlifted out of Cuba exiled from his family, his country, and his own childhood by the revolution. The memories of Carlos's life in Havana, cut short when he was just eleven years old, are at the heart of this stunning, evocative, and unforgettable memoir. "Waiting for Snow in Havana" is both an exorcism and an od... Full description

About this title

Review:

Carlos Eire's memoir of his childhood in Waiting for Snow in Havana: Confessions of a Cuban Boy explodes off the page with the smells, sights, and sounds of the tropics. But the most interesting aspect of his story is the story of the Revolution from a boy too young to know exactly what's happening.

Just nine-years-old when Castro and his fellow revolutionaries overthrew Batista, Eire watched as relatives were arrested, property confiscated, and rights lost. Naturally, it was a confusing time for the boy, as his whole world was turned upside-down by factors both visible, such as militiamen, and invisible. "I woke up to the fact that something had gone awfully wrong with the world that day," writes Eire. "We stood there for a while, all of us, asking questions, complaining... it was the sheer shock of encountering a stupid rule that kept us there, loitering under the marquee." The rule? The movie 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea was suddenly off-limits to minors.

There is no love lost between the author--today a history and religious studies professor at Yale--and the man he calls a "ruthless dictator masquerading as a humanitarian."

Waiting for Snow in Havana is a cry from the heart of a boy torn from family, country, and way of life. Eire was 11 at the time he was shipped off to the US to live with strangers, and the fire still burns in him at the injustice of it. This fury propels his memoir, which is by turns cloying, sentimental, repetitious, and meandering. (Eire can, and does, go on for paragraphs about the shape of clouds. Federico Lorca he is not.) But readers looking for insight into one of the century's most "successful" revolutions will come away from Waiting for Snow with a fresh perspective on a crucial period of Cuban, and world, history. --Shawn Conner, Amazon.ca

Review:

"The Miami Herald"

A wistful glimpse of a shattered world.

The Washington Post Bursting with wonderful details and images and populated by characters so well described that they seem to be sitting next to you on the couch.

The Boston Globe Eire is gifted with what might be called lyric precision -- a knack for grasping the life of a moment through its sensuous particulars....Vigorously written and alive.

Los Angeles Times The most accomplished literary expression of exile sensibility to have appeared to date. What is powerful and lasting about the book is Eire's evocation of childhood and his extraordinary literary ability.

"Los Angeles Times" The most accomplished literary expression of exile sensibility to have appeared to date. What is powerful and lasting about the book is Eire's evocation of childhood and his extraordinary literary ability.

"The Boston Globe" Eire is gifted with what might be called lyric precision -- a knack for grasping the life of a moment through its sensuous particulars....Vigorously written and alive.

"The Washington Post" Bursting with wonderful details and images and populated by characters so well described that they seem to be sitting next to you on the couch.

"The Miami Herald" A wistful glimpse of a shattered world.

Los Angeles Times The most accomplished literary expression of exile sensibility to have appeared to date. What is powerful and lasting about the book is Eire's evocation of childhood and his extraordinary literary ability.

The Boston Globe Eire is gifted with what might be called lyric precision -- a knack for grasping the life of a moment through its sensuous particulars....Vigorously written and alive.

About this edition

• Publisher: Free Press
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 0743246411
• ISBN 13: 9780743246415
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 400