The Cuban Comedy - Softcover

Medina, Pablo

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1944700870 ISBN 13: 9781944700874

Publisher: The Unnamed Press, 2019

Synopsis

"A literary triumph." ―NBC News
A love story steeped in political satire, poetry, and the lightest touches of magical realism, Medina has created a bold, funny narrative with an uncanny heroine at its core: Elena of Piedra Negra, Cuba.
Piedra Negra is an isolated village, whose citizens consist mainly of soldiers injured in the revolution who pass the time drinking a firewater so intense, all hallucinate, and most never recover. The firewater distiller's daughter Elena longs to be a poet, and after a chance encounter with Daniel Arcilla, Cuba's most important poet, Elena wins a national poetry prize and leaves Piedra Negra behind for Havana.
There she encounters a population adjusting to a new way of life, post-revolution: there are spies and secret meetings, black marketeers, and censorship. Full of outlandish humor and insights into an often contradictory and kafkaesque regime, Medina brings 1960s Cuba to life through the eyes of Elena.

About this title

About the Author:

Pablo Medina is the author of eighteen books of poetry, fiction, non-fiction, and translation, among them The Island Kingdom (poems, Hanging Loose, 2015); the novels Cubop City Blues (Grove Press, 2012) and The Cigar Roller (Grove, 2005), and the newest English version of Alejo Carpentier's seminal novel The Kingdom of This World (FSG Classics, 2017). Medina’s work has appeared in several languages, among them Spanish, French, German, and Arabic, and in periodicals and magazines throughout the world. He was a member of the AWP board of directors from 2002-2007, serving as president in 2005–2006. Winner of numerous awards, among them grants from the Rockefeller and Oscar B. Cintas foundations, the state arts councils of New Jersey and Pennsylvania, the NEA, the Lila-Wallace Reader’s Digest Fund, and others, Medina was a Guggenheim Fellow in 2012. Currently, he lives in Vermont and teaches in the Warren Wilson MFA Program for Writers.

Review:

"The Cuban Comedy is Medina's dramatic reminder that one might expect a true revolution to fill our hearts with poetry, not strangle a poet's words in her throat." ―Bob Shacochis, author of The Woman Who Lost Her Soul

"Medina has written a novel in which one could lose one’s self, just as the aspiring poet, Elena, is embroiled in the chaos of one of the most compelling moments in Cuban history. The prose is classic Medina―rich, insightful, and delectable.” ―Angie Cruz, author of Dominicana

"A sharp, beautifully rendered look at how political ideology can warp even the best art. At times hilarious, at times tragic, The Cuban Comedy keeps you rooting for its idealistic poet-heroine, Elena, as she navigates an impossible post-revolution Cuba. Politics may be able to crush poetry, but in this elegy, the masterful Pablo Medina reminds us again of the sanctity of intellectual freedom, no matter the costs." ―Ana Menendez, author of Adios, Happy Homeland!

"A bleak fable that honors the poetic spirit, recognizing lyricism and metaphor as dangerous tools of defiance." ―Kirkus Reviews

"Rich and surprising at every turn, the beautiful excesses―the superb inventions―of 'The Cuban Comedy' lead us step by darkening step to the ironies of survival. Commonsensical as only extravagant comedy can be, this is a wonderful book."
―Joan Silber

"Pablo Medina's The Cuban Comedy walks a fine line between poetry and political satire. The story is deeply immersed in post-revolution Cuba, in the crumbling country and unmet needs of its people, but poets and poetry are at its core. The blend makes for tragicomedy with a touch of Spanish; it reads like a combination of legendary Cuban comedian Guillermo Įlvarez Guedes' irreverent, foul-mouthed humor and the beautiful strangeness of Alejandro Jodorowsky's prose." ―Gabino Iglesias, NPR

"In this compulsively readable and darkly absurdist novel, Medina is at his best." ―Booklist

"Award-winning poet, novelist, translator, memoirist, Pablo Medina is a literary magician and 'The Cuban Comedy' is his finest spell― a luminous novel of poets trying to write and love their way through a Revolution. Witty, wily and pulsing with indomitable life 'The Cuban Comedy' is an incantation― summoning an island, a lost time and that most necessary of all things: wisdom."
―Junot Diaz

About this edition

• Publisher: The Unnamed Press
• Publication date: 2019
• ISBN 10: 1944700870
• ISBN 13: 9781944700874
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 192