Nieve en la Habana. Confesiones de un cubanito. (Waiting for Snow in Havana: Confessions of a Cuban Boy)

By staff -- Críticas, 9/1/2007

In this beautifully fashioned memoir, [Yale historial Eire] recounts one of many wonderfully vibrant stories from his boyhood in 1950s Havana. As imaginatively wrought as the finest piece of fiction, the book abounds with magical interpretations of ordinary boyhood events—playing in a friend’s backyard is like a perilous journey through the jungle; setting off firecrackers becomes a lyrical, cosmic opera; a child’s birthday party turns into a phantasmagoria of American pop cultural icons. … Eire looks beyond the literal to see the mythological themes inherent in the epic struggle for identity that each of our lives represents. … The final cataclysm comes when Eire and his brother, still young boys, are shipped off to the United States to seek safety and a better life. As painful as Eire’s journey has been, his ability to see tragedy and suffering as a constant source of redemption is what makes this book so powerful. Taking his cue from his beloved Jesus, the author believes that we repeatedly die for our sins and are reborn into a new awareness of paradise. How fortunate for readers, then, that by way of Eire’s “confessions,” they too will be able to renew their souls through his transcendent words. [PW 12/23/02; starred]