The Bleeding Wound — Mirta Yanez

Fiction. Latino/Latina Studies. Women's Studies. LGBT Studies. Translated from the Spanish by Sara E. Cooper. Edited by Margaret Wallace and Nancy Alonso. Second place winner, 2016 International Latino Book Award for Best Fiction Book in Translation. Tones of disillusionment and wistful longing permeate the bilingual edition of this novel about the passage of time, the city of Havana, and death. Within its complex structure, a concert of diverse voices narrates the compelling sagas of a generation of Cubans who embraced the 1959 socialist revolution in their adolescence, as well as the young who inherited its boons and its banes. The novel is a palimpsest: layers of personal narratives overlay the story of the city of Havana. Readers will delve into the complicated actuality of Cuba as it is today, an island nation cherished by its inhabitants despite the harsh quotidian existence that it offers. The wound is bleeding, Havana is dying, and readers will want to know the answer to the questions posed in Yáñez's novel, questions as universal as they are intrinsically Cuban: Who are we? Why are we here? And what will become of us?