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Ruins
March 2009/
Marzo 2009

Obejas, Achy.
Ruins. Akashic.
Mar. 2009. c.300p.
ISBN 978-1-933354-
69-9.
pap. $14.95.


This superb novel by Cuban-born writer and poet Obejas (Memory Mambo) follows the story of Usnavy, who, despite a bleak childhood in a small provincial city near Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, achieves his rightful place in the world as a standard bearer for Castro and Che after the 1959 revolution.
    However, this all changes in 1994, when the Cuban government permits any and all to leave Cuba by any and all means. Usnavy's best friend leaves without a word, and suddenly the dollar becomes the currency for all goods necessary to his wife and daughter—and to himself.
    In the midst of this turmoil, Usnavy's only constant is his pride in the oversized stained-glass lamp he inherited from his mother, and for the first time he becomes curious about its origins.
    He seeks out knowledge from the aptly named Virgilio, a restorer of old glass lamps, and is led through the Dantean mazes of Havana and a secret family history.
    Although initially confusing, Obejas's writing style effectively mimics the plot, as the author navigates a maze of histories and ethnicities.
    Recommended for larger public and all academic library collections.—Mary Margaret Benson, Linfield Coll. Lib., McMinnville, OR
    Other Books by Achy Obejas
Upcoming Appearances
Achy Obejas is a frequent speaker at universities, churches, synagogues, libraries, book clubs and other community organizations.

She is also available for limited workshop engagements and visiting academic appointments.

If you want to receive regular information about Achy's upcoming publications and appearances, contact inov@aol.com.



"Achy Obejas writes like an angel: flush with power, vision and hope ... one of the Caribbean's most important writers."  
Junot Diaz, author of Drown and
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

Come March 2009, Achy will have a new as-yet-untitled novel, set completely in Cuba, with Akashic Books! For updates, you can check in here or at www.akashicbooks.com.

In the meantime, Havana Noir (Akashic, 2007), the most recent project to come from Achy, has been garnering amazing critical claim from The Believer, The Miami Herald, and a host of others. Reviews inside! A groundbreaking collection of crime stories set in the Cuban capital, it features work by writers on and off the island, including Leonardo Padura, Mylene Fernández, Miguel Mejides, Carolina García-Aguilera, Pablo Medina and a dozen more of the most exciting Cuban and Cuban-American writers today. Besides editing the volume, Achy also translated 13 of the stories from Spanish to English.

Early next fall, her translation of Junot Díaz's The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao will make her one of the few translators working to and from both English and Spanish.

November brought Achy's first poetry collection, This is What Happened in Our Other Life (A Midsummer's Night Press, 2007: www.amidsummernightspress.com). The debut chapbook in the press' Body Language Series, it is the first time that Achy's verse has ever been published in book form. In December and January, This is What Happened in Our Life reached #5 and #2 on the Poetry Foundation's bestseller list!

Havana-born Achy is the author of Days of Awe, a critically acclaimed novel (Ballantine/Random House, 2001) about the tensions between public and private identities set against the backdrop of the Jewish community in Cuba.

Her other books include Memory Mambo, a novel, and We Came All the Way From Cuba So You Could Dress Like This?, a collection of short stories (both from Cleis: www.cleispress.com). Both books, along with Days of Awe, are regularly taught at colleges and universities throughout the U.S.

Her fiction and poetry have also appeared in First Person Queer (Arsenal Pulp), Chicago Noir (Akashic), The Cuba Reader (Duke University), Cuba on the Verge (Bullfinch Press), Isla Tan Dulce (Letras Cubanas/Cuba), Estatuas de Sal, (Ediciones Union/Cuba), The Way We Write Now (Birch Lane), A Fine Excess: Fifty Years of the Beloit Poetry Journal (The Beloit Poetry Journal Foundation) and many other anthologies.
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