a Cuban-American soap opera for English-speaking readers

Havana Cuba. – When she fell into my hands Cubic, the new book by the writer and journalist Manuel Ballagas, which was published a few weeks ago by the Lulú publishing house, I was on the verge of not reading it. I thought it was the English translation of Rest when you die, a book of stories by Ballagas from 2010 that I had already read and enjoyed a lot. Fortunately, the author, in a emailhe corrected me from my mistake, by warning me that Cubic It’s a new book.

When I read it, I understood that, indeed, it is different. And not just because it’s in English instead of Spanish – or spanglishby dint of so much broken Anglicism― of Rest when you die, nor for the name change of the protagonist, who instead of being Manny is identified as Cubiche. No. It’s about much more than that.

As Ballagas explains: “In CubicUnlike Rest when you dielanguage becomes unimportant, with just a little Spanish sprinkled in. Cubic explains to the English-speaking reader a reality that does not need to be explained to the Spanish reader. It is a different book. For example, Cuba is not mentioned even once in Rest when you die. Manny is a kind of refugee par excellence, with no discernible homeland, faced with a world that he tries to defend himself from and understand at the same time. In Cubicstarting with the name, the Cuban identity of the protagonist is more obvious and declared.”

Ballagas develops the plot of both books with great skill, both in English and Spanish. I always say – and he agrees with me – that because of his narrative technique, he seems more like an American writer than a Cuban one. Let’s say that he is closer to Carver or Bukovsky than to Leonardo Padura or Pedro Juan Gutiérrez. And it is a conscious choice, which is due more to the tastes and literary influences received than to the 44 years that Ballagas has been residing in the United States.

The 12 stories in the book, very well woven together, are fast-paced, with a dizzying pace, almost cinematic, like that of a Tarantino film. Full of violence, sex and swearing, these stories crudely reflect the harsh environment in which Cubiche operates, a tough guy who knows that, having started at a disadvantage and moving in a terrain that he discovers through stumbles and blows, he still has to be tougher, if he aspires to survive.

The situations and atmospheres of these stories may seem exaggerated, but surely those immigrants who do not quite fit in will not think that way, no matter how hard they try – and not always in the right direction – in the “American dream”, among other factors, because They carry the heavy burden of their experiences in their countries of origin.

Black novel, dirty realism? There is that and more in Cubic. And descriptions so faithful that one seems to accompany Cubiche on his adventures through Little Havana, La Sagüesera (South West) or Hialeah.

Manuel Ballagas, born in Havana in 1948, published his first book in Ediciones El Puente, when he was not yet 18 years old. For that book, which infuriated Fidel Castro, he was ostracized. In 1973 he was sent to prison for “ideological diversionism.” He was imprisoned for four years. In May 1980, during the Mariel exodus, he left Cuba. He worked as a journalist in The Wall Street Journal, Tampa Tribune, Miami Herald and the magazine Foreign Affairs. He is the author of the books Billing bird, Bad tongues, Hotel Paris, The trail of the jagüey and the carob tree y Newcomer (memories), among others.

OPINION ARTICLE
The opinions expressed in this article are the exclusive responsibility of the person issuing them and do not necessarily represent the opinion of CubaNet.