|
Artists
Echo Stifled Cries
 By
Fernando Ortiz, Jr.
Cuba
on the Verge: An Island in Transition, edited by Terry McCoy
(Bulfinch Press, 2003). Hardcover, 200 pages. $50.
How
does one understand or appreciate Cuba? How does one fathom
the caged beauty of a society strangled by dictatorship?
Where can one begin to comprehend the rich, vibrant Cuban
culture struggling to free itself from poverty, isolation
and uncertainty?
Begin
with Cuba on the Verge: An Island in Transition. Editor
Tracy McCoy has assembled a collage of extraordinary pieces
of Cuban literature, thought and art to encapsulate an island
society breaking through the constrictions of a revolution
now as crumbled as the palatial corruption it fought to
wash away.
The
stunning work of essayists, playwrights, and photographers
all echo Cubans’ stifled cries of joy, fear, horror,
and passion. They capture the quiet moments of an individual
staring out into the world. They dare to explore the eternal
question asked by all men and women: Why am I here?
A Cuban
filmmaker had the best answer to that question: “It’s
easier to live in Cuba than to explain how we live in Cuba.”
McCoy’s
principal point is beautifully made in this remarkable book:
Despite oppression, economic paralysis, or national uncertainty
over the future, life goes on. Life breaks through societal,
financial or political barriers, and the struggle to do
so makes it ever more colorful, forceful, and lasting. Men
and women make love in shabby bedrooms. Parades proudly
march through the trash-strewn streets. Poetry and love
songs are recited and sung. Prayers are whispered to forbidden
gods.
The
tapestry McCoy weaves together is impressively ambitious.
Essays of words and photos explore the senses of time and
history, sexual and racial identity, religions and women,
the emerging middle class, life in the countryside and life
in exile, music and art, and even Fidel Castro himself.
Among
the many luminaries in this book are journalist Jon Lee
Anderson, novelists Russell Banks, Achy Obejas, Cristina
García and Abilio Estevez, playwrights Arthur Miller
and Abelardo Estorino, poets Nancy Morejón and Reina
María Rodríguez, historian Eduardo Luis Rodríguez,
and photographers Niurka Barroso, Virginia Beahan and Abigail
González.
The
prose and the essays are entrancing. The photography is
astounding. It’s not intrusive or intimidating. Like
the written work, it’s meant to capture slices of Cuban
life, both private and public. An old woman simply stares
into the camera. Boys play beside a cracked wall, uncaring
or unaware they have been captured on film. Dark hands hold
flowers, point to religious figurines, and touch fading
tapestries.
The
photographs remind us of the historic grandeur of Cuba,
of its important place in Latin American history, of the
treasures that slowly crumble within the cocoon of its Communist
regime. Fortalezas and 1950s hotels stand like tombstones
to what existed before 1959. One series of photographs by
Carlos Garaicoa is reminiscent of the neglected wreckage
of Greek ruins, noble and humbling even when shattered.
Life
may be hard, but the heart and mind endure. Individually,
the essays and photographs in the book are each unique testaments
to such endurance. Together, they are a reminder that Cuba
remains on the verge of greatness. McCoy’s triumph
is to make us understand what she sees and to share in her
breathless anticipation.
|
ON
THE SHELVES
|
|
 -
The New Face of Baseball. The One-Hundred-Year
Rise & Triumph of Latinos in America’s Favorite
Sport by Tim Wendel (HarperCollins, 2003).
320 pages. $24.95. Sports. Wendel tells the history
of Latinos’ rise to domination in Major League
Baseball. All of the well-known players—Alex
Rodríguez, Sammy Sosa, Roberto Clemente, Fernando
Valenzuela and others too numerous to mention—are
in this book as well as some lesser-known figures,
such as Adolfo Luque, the first Latino to play in
the World Series in 1923, and Martin Dihigo, a black
Cuban some consider to be the best player of all time
and who has been inducted in baseball halls of fame
in four countries. Includes a foreword by broadcaster
Bob Costas.
 -
Monkey Hunting by Cristina García
(Alfred A. Knopf, 2003). 250 pages. $23. Fiction.
The acclaimed author of Dreaming in Cuban and The
Aguero Sisters now comes with a novel that follows
a family from China to Cuba to America. Chen Pan has
no idea the contract he signed in 1857 actually enslaves
him on a sugarcane plantation. He miraculously escapes
his enslavement and heads toward Havana’s Chinatown
to begin a new life. Immigration, assimilation and
searching for a sense of belonging fill this emotional
tale.
 -
Survivors in Mexico by Rebecca West (Yale
University Press, 2003). 304 pages. $26.95. Travel
memoir/history. This incomplete work from the deceased
author has been rescued from oblivion. In 1966, West
traveled to Mexico on assignment for The New Yorker
and instead wrote a cultural anatomy regarding humanity’s
obsession with violence, guilt, sacrifice, meditations
and art. The book delves into the lives of Cortés,
Montezuma, Trotsky, Aztec slaves, political thinkers
Elie and Elisée Reclus, as well as artists
Dr. Atl, Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo. This work was
conceived as a companion and sequel to her 1941 masterpiece
about the Balkans, Black Lamb and Grey Falcon.
 -
Mamá. Latina Daughters Celebrate Their Mothers
by María Pérez-Brown (HarperCollins,
2003). 256 pages. $27.50. The creator of Nickelodeon’s
TV series Gullah Gullah Island and Taína has
written this collection of stories and photographs
about remarkable Latinas and their mothers, their
complex relationships and even their cultural differences.
The stories are told through the eyes of the daughters
of famous Latinas, including Celia Cruz, Marilyn Milián,
Columba Bush, Rosario Marín and others. Available
in both English and Spanish.
—Ana
Acle-Menéndez
|
|
