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Overview

"Remarkable...An intricate weaving of dramatic events with the supernatural and the cosmic...Evocative and lush...A rich and haunting narrative, an excellent new voice in contemporary fiction."
SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE Now available in a Spanish language edition from Ballantine Books.
Here is the dreamy and bittersweet story of a family divided by politics and geography by the Cuban revolution. It is the family story of Celia del Pino, and her husband, daughter and grandchildren, from the mid-1930s to 1980. Celia's story mirrors the magical realism of Cuba itself, a country of beauty and poverty, idealism and corruption. DREAMING IN CUBAN presents a unique vision and a haunting lamentation for a past that might have been.

Set in Havana, Brooklyn, and the Cuban seaside in the 1970s, Dreaming in Cuban unravels the lives and fortunes of four women of the colorful Del Pino family. Celia is the aging matriarch faithful to Fidel . . . Felicia is her mad (and possibly murderous) daughter . . . Lourdes, her other child, is a capitalist counterrevolutionary . . . and her daughter, Pilar, is an artistic punk filled with impossible Cuban dreams.

Editorial Reviews

Library Journal
Garcia's first novel is about Cuba, her native country, and three generations of del Pino women who are seeking spiritual homes for their passionate, often troubled souls. Celia del Pino and her descendants also share clairvoyant and visionary powers that somehow remain undiminished, despite the Cuban revolution and its profound effect upon their lives. This dichotomy suffuses their lives with a potent mixture of superstition, politics, and surrealistic charm that gives the novel an otherworldly atmosphere. Garcia juggles these opposing life forces like a skilled magician accustomed to tossing into the air fiery objects that would explode if they came into contact. Writing experimentally in a variety of forms, she combines narratives, love letters, and monologs to portray the del Pinos as they move back and forth through time. Garcia tells their story with an economy of words and a rich, tropical imagery, setting a brisk but comfortable pace. Highly recommended.-- Janet W. Reit, Univ. of Vermont Lib., Burlington

Product Details

  • ISBN-13: 9780345381439
  • Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
  • Publication date: 2/28/1993
  • Edition description: Reprint
  • Pages: 272
  • Sales rank: 81,668
  • Lexile: 940L (what's this?)
  • Product dimensions: 5.09 (w) x 8.03 (h) x 0.56 (d)

Meet the Author

Cristina Garcia
Cristina Garcia

Cristina García was born in Havana and grew up in New York City. Her first novel, Dreaming in Cuban, was nominated for a National Book Award and has been widely translated. Ms. García has been a Guggenheim Fellow, a Hodder Fellow at Princeton University, and the recipient of a Whiting Writers' Award. She lives in Los Angeles with her daughter, Pilar.

Interviews & Essays

A Conversation with Cristina García
Scott Shibuya Brown is a writer and professor at California State University, Northridge.

Scott Brown: What prompted you to write Dreaming in Cuban?

Cristina García: It was a confluence of three things: I returned to Cuba for the first time since leaving at the age of two and a half, I did a stint as a journalist in Miami, and lastly and probably most important, I started to read poetry in
earnest. The sense of not fitting in either in Havana, or in Miami, the heart of the Cuban exile community, made me start questioning my own identity. Where did I belong? What did it mean to be Cuban? And the poetry made me feverish to write.

SB: When you started to write this, did you have a larger idea of the story you wanted to tell or were you at that time painting on a more miniaturist canvas?

CG: Dreaming in Cuban actually started out as a poem andslowly grew. After about a hundred pages, I realized that what I was working on was a novel. Nobody was more surprised than I. I felt as if I had backed my way into this. If I had known this from the beginning, I might have been too intimidated
to take it on.

SB: When you realized you were in the middle of a novel, did your intentions toward the work change?

CG: I realized I wanted to create very specific characters and chronicle their obsessions, while at the same time exploring the trickle-down effects of the Cuban revolution on their lives and relationships. I also wanted to focus primarily on women. So much of history is written by and about men. I hoped to explore the more personalrepercussions of a big political event.

SB: Politics and political allegiances figure in nearly every part of the book, yet none of the characters really exhibits any discriminating political awareness. Ironically, the most sagacious comment comes from Felicia, who says at one
point, "We 're dying of security." Is this the nature of the political debate as carried on by Cubans who stayed in Cuba and the exile community?

CG: The public nature of the debate is very black and white, very polarized, very unintegrated. But really, they're the flip side of each other. The extreme cores of both sides have more similarities than differences in terms of their intransigence
and self-righteousness. Personally, I'm more interested in the gap and shades of gray between these two extremes. That's what I was trying to explore. There are many ways to be Cuban and I resist the notion that to be Cuban is to hold
particular political views or act in certain circumscribed ways.

SB: Which character do you feel the most affection for and why?

CG: Definitely Celia. For me, she was the guiding spirit of the book, and though I don't agree with everything she says and does, she seems to always act with a sense of passion and honesty. When I finally met my own maternal grandmother
in Cuba in 1984, I was flooded with a sense of loss for everything that we hadn't experienced together. I wanted to capture something of that lost connection in the relationship between Celia and her granddaughter, Pilar.

SB: Now let me ask you the character with whom you most identify.

CG: I think of Pilar as kind of an alter ego for me. I grew up with a very bifurcated sense of myself. At home, things were intensely Cuban. In the rest of my life, it had very little meaning. I probably thought of myself, first and foremost, as
a New Yorker—an urban kid with an affinity for many cultures yet beholden to none. It wasn't until I started to write fiction that my private Cuban self merged with my public self. Now I feel that I live more on the hyphen than on either side
of it.

SB: Lourdes is an intriguing character. Much of what shedoes and says is quite disagreeable, yet in some ways she 's also sympathetic. What saves her?

CG:
What saves her is her unerring instinct to protect what is hers, especially her daughter Pilar, with whom she disagrees on just about everything. When she defends her daughter's punk portrait of the Statue of Liberty, that is the essential
Lourdes. She 's tribal and territorial, forthright and aggressive. The woman sleeps well at night and she 's also unintentionally funny. It's hard to hate her for very long. I found myself loving her grudgingly.

SB: Speaking of characters, in rereading this, I was struck by Celia's character. Obviously, she is portrayed much more sympathetically than Lourdes, yet in her own way she's just as intransigent and inflexible. Would you agree with this interpretation?

CG: Yes. They're each in their own way die-hard believers, which is why they ultimately can't get along. I think there 's very little room for orthodoxy, political or otherwise, between two people who love each other. When politics trumps the personal, bitter schisms are the result. Celia is personally less irritating than Lourdes but deep down, they're two peas in a pod.

SB: How do Celia's letters serve the character, and as a novelist, what did this technique provide you?

CG: Celia had a poetic streak that needed an outlet and I felt the epistolary form would provide a greater insight into her nature and sensibility, while also providing textural variety to the narrative. Basically, I wanted her to have her own voice. I wanted her to speak directly to the readers through the guise of this haunted love affair. The letters provide a window into her inner life and yearnings.

SB: It's striking that all of the characters have deeply troubled relationships with their husbands, wives, and lovers. In fact, the only relationship that seems to bespeak any romantic love is Celia and Gustavo's illusory one. Why is that?

CG: Because in almost all ways, I think, love is harder than politics. In Celia's case, it was an idealized love, one that didn't have to be tested by time and the quotidian. It was easier to keep it alive than anything more reality based.

SB: Similarly, most of the parent/child relationships either are strained or strange. I'm thinking not only of Celia and Lourdes, Jorge and Javier, and Lourdes and Pilar but also of Felicia and Ivanito, and Felicia and her twin daughters. Canyou talk about that?

CG: I wanted to highlight not only generational differences between my characters but also the differences that were compounded by contrasting perspectives on the Cuban revolution. The generation gap was not only familial, but political, and it made ordinary rites of rebellion more complex and fraught with tension. Plus, let's face it, there was a tremendous amount of dysfunction here, even without the help of the revolution.

SB: Was it hard to write Pilar's betrayal of Celia at the end? Were you aware of having to consciously make the choice to have her behave this way or did it emerge naturally from the character?

CG: It seemed to me inevitable in that classic Aristotelian way. It was both surprising and inevitable. When it happened, I was personally disappointed in Pilar but I knew she couldn't sacrifice her cousin. He didn't belong in Cuba any more than Pilar's mother did. It would have been criminal to force him to stay. Pilar understood intuitively that this was how it had to be.

SB: And the ending with Celia in the ocean, how did that come about?

CG: It came full circle with the opening when she sits by the ocean and goes for a swim. When I started the book I didn't know why Celia was wearing the drop-pearl earrings. When I got to the end, it seemed a fulfillment of that opening scene. It begins and ends with the sea, with the lure of the sea and all its promises.

SB: I've always felt that the ending derives its power from its ambiguity. Do you see Celia's fate as ambiguous?

CG: I deliberately wanted it to be ambiguous. I've been asked whether Celia commits suicide, or if she swims back to Cuba or even if she might get picked up by the Coast Guard. My answer is always: I really don't know. In any case, I feel that she's come to some kind of personal reckoning when she releases
her drop-pearl earrings to the sea.

SB: Can you talk about the novel's lyricism?

CG: I often thought of the book in musical terms. For me, I fueled this by reading a lot of poetry and paying attention to the musicality of each sentence. I also wanted to capture in English something of the rhythm and syncopation of the Spanish language. I wanted the book to feel as though the reader were experiencing it in Spanish.

SB: Who were some of the poets who inspired you?

CG: At the time, I was reading a lot of Wallace Stevens, Federico García Lorca, Octavio Paz, Pablo Neruda, and William Carlos Williams. I was enthralled by the magic and the imagery, the economy and the astonishing luminosity of their
work. I also was reading a great deal of Chekhov, Borges, and García Marquez. In fact, I return again and again to Chekhov for the great humanity and distillation of his short stories.

SB: Speaking of García Marquez, can you discuss some of the novel's magical realism?

CG: I first encountered magical realism reading Kafka's Metamorphosis. I think it exists in many traditions in literature. The South American variety, however, particularly resonated with me and gave me a tremendous sense of possibility.
What I liked to explore is the borderland between what is only remotely possible and what is utterly impossible.

SB: There's a lot of tragedy in the book yet it's not tragic. Why?

CG: This could have been a grim book without the saving grace of humor. In Cuba or Miami, who could survive without the ability to laugh at their plight now and then? TheCuban propensity for exaggeration contributes to this. If every exile who claimed to have a deed to his ranch on the island actually produced it, the joke goes, Cuba would be the size of Brazil.

SB: You write a lot about santería. Why is that?

CG: Santería was traditionally an unacknowledged and underappreciated
aspect of what it meant to be Cuban. Yet the syncretism between the Yoruban religion that the slaves brought to the island and the Catholicism of their masters is, in my opinion, the underpinning of Cuban culture. Every artistic realm—music, theater, literature, etc.—owes a huge debt to santería and the slaves who practiced it and passed it on, largely secretively, for generations.

SB: Did you consider yourself an exile?

CG: I feel like I grew up in the wake of my parents' exile rather than enduring the loss directly. But while I don't consider myself an exile, I've had the privilege of experiencing two cultures at very close range, participating in both and belonging to neither entirely. Compounding this is the sense of voluntary exile
I have as a writer, of stepping outside the stream of everyday
life to try and make sense of it. This is the greatest luxury of this peculiar exile.

SB: What role does memory play in the novel?

CG: Memory is more a point of departure than a repository of facts. It's a product of both necessity and imagination, of my characters' needs to reinvent themselves and invest themselves in narratives of their own devising. Each of them needs to be a heroine, to believe she is doing the right thing, choosing
the only path to a kind of personal redemption. They need their memories in this sense to survive.

SB: It's been more than a decade since Dreaming in Cuban was published. How do you regard it now?

CG: With a bittersweet nostalgia. I gave birth to the book— my first novel—and my daughter in the same year and they both changed my life irrevocably for the better.

SB: Lastly, whose story do you see Dreaming in Cuban as
being?

CG: Personally, I see Celia and Pilar as foreground characters and Felicia and Lourdes as more background characters. But each in her own way is telling an essential part of the story. None can exist without the others.

Reading Group Guide

1. What is the nature of Celia’s devotion to the revolution? Why is she such a true believer in it?

2. Why does Celia continue to write Gustavo? What does he represent to her? What purposes do her letters serve in the novel?

3. Why does Jorge come back to visit Celia? Why did he lie about Celia to Lourdes, and why is it important for him to tell her what he ’s done?

4. Though the events of modern-day Cuba are woven throughout the novel, García never refers to Fidel Castro by name, only as El Lider. Why does she do this and what does this bring to the novel?

5. Why does Lourdes defend her daughter after Pilar unveils the punk Statue of Liberty painting?

6. This novel is told from several different perspectives over three generations. What does this technique lend to the novel?

7. The themes of magic and faith are predominant throughout the novel. How do the novel’s characters view magic and faith, and how do they use these qualities in their daily lives?

8. All of the characters seem to be searching to fulfill unnamed desires. Can you identify what each of them want? Does regret play any part in their actions?

9. García writes, “The family is hostile to the individual.” Discuss how this applies to the novel’s characters.

10. How are the many intersections of race and class depicted in the novel?

11. By the novel’s end, all of Celia’s children are lost to her, either by death or estrangement. This is echoed by the troubled relationship between Pilar and Lourdes, the twins’ relationship with Felicia, and the final spiriting away of Ivanito.
What is García trying to show here, and why?

12. The final portion of the book, in which Lourdes and Pilar travel to Cuba, is titled “The Languages Lost.” What do you think this means? How do you interpret the other passage headings?

13. What is Pilar searching for in her relationship with her grandmother? Does she find it?

14. What is Celia’s legacy to Pilar?

15. Why does Pilar lie to Celia at the end? How is the theme of betrayal handled throughout the novel?

16. What is it that drives Celia into the sea at the end? Is it Ivanito’s disappearance or Pilar’s lying to her or something else?

17. What does the title of the book signify? Who is “dreaming,” so to speak? Do you think García is referring to a specific character or is it a collective dreaming?

Customer Reviews
Average Rating 4
( 39 )

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  • Posted May 18, 2011

    a must read

    this book transports the reader to Cuba and all of its wonders of yesteryear. it is beautifully written. i highly recomend reading it and a book by Dede Mirabal re: las hermanas mirabal 'vivas en su jardin'

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  • Posted February 9, 2011

    more from this reviewer

    Interesting Story, but a cumbersome read.

    I found Dreaming in Cuban to be a cumbersome effort to read. Almost from the start I was beginning to lose track of the characters and I was beginning to think that I would need a score card to keep track of who was who. In this novel the author did create interesting scenes that centers around the Cuban family, and culture but there were so many loose ends when I finished reading the book that the overall story just didn't connect with me. It's not a terrible read, maybe just an entertaining story.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted December 2, 2007

    Magical and exotic!

    I read this book for the first time at the age of 15. Since, I have read it over and over again....this recount of generations of immigrant women is not what you expect. The story turns into a magical and at times erotic recount of 3 generations of women. It is enchanting and mysterious and at times causes one to ignore what we know to be true about reality...

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  • Anonymous

    Posted December 4, 2007

    A reviewer

    I noticed most reviews are from possibly Cuban American readers or students of Latin American literature classes. I found this book after my first cruise which was to the Caribbean. I decided to read translations of Caribbean authors. This is a wonderful book. I agree particularly with the reviewer who mentions how fantasy is a coping mechanism for these characters. This book is bizarre because so much of the time it is the constantly ticking internal dialogues of people. This book increased immensely my understanding of the Cuban American plight and opened up the closed world of those left behind.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted May 16, 2007

    sick but enhancing

    This novel displays a love for writing but a lack of understanding of the priniciple of captivation. Caveats apply to the naive, as sickening images are juxtaposized to beautiful words. Not for all yet all for some.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted September 18, 2006

    Not what I expected. I liked it!

    With Castro so much in the news lately, it's no wonder this book has taken off--again! And don't think for a minute that it's just a 'chick' book---it's not. It's funny, warm, intelligent, and a great way to spend some time with a writer from whom I hope we'll hear more.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted October 14, 2003

    Interesting

    I got interested in this book because in my history class we were learnig about Fidel's Cuba. This book has showed me how people from Cuba feel about Cuba and what they do in Cuba.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted September 2, 2003

    what a book

    i loved this book so much it tells about women and what they go through it's like a book recommended for all the women on earth

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  • Anonymous

    Posted June 12, 2003

    Wow!

    I bought this book with out knowing anything about it, and by the time I finished it, I was captivated by the author's writing skill! This is the type of book you just can't put down! I have told all of my friends about it, and I have re-read it about four times. This book was great from start to finish, the characters were totally believable. I felt as if the author could have been spying on my family when she wrote this. I can't give this book enough praise, just go out and read it already!

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  • Anonymous

    Posted April 23, 2003

    A wonderful book to read!

    I just finished this book for a multicultural women's literature class and I have to say it is now one of my favorites. The way that Garcia weaves her story is simply amazing. The different relationships in this novel are great, you really feel like you are a part of the del Pino family while reading. Garcia makes you really feel the characters you are reading about. I couldn't put this book down, I love it and recommend it to everyone!

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  • Anonymous

    Posted July 11, 2002

    Excellent Novel

    This novel by Julia Garcia is great because it reveals real life situations and how a Dominican family adapts to life in the United States of America after basically being raised in their homeland. The story mostly consists of four sisters, (Carla, Sandi, Yolanda, and Fifi) and their parents Carlos and Laura. The adjustment for the family was relatively harsh, due to the fact that they came from having everything in their homeland to basically trying to survive in this new environment they now tried to call their new home. The novel is very interesting since it is not narrated in chronological order so it makes the reader further analyze the story and put it together after finishing the book. Coming from a Hispanic family and being able to relate to these kinds of situations makes the story more interesting in my eyes. The novel is excellent and is a great paperback for any reader¿s collection.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted July 15, 2002

    Blood of many chickens

    In Julia Alvarez's 'Dreaming in Cuban' she gives a fictional account of a generation full of solace and heartbreak among social and political lines. Each character encounters some form of self-observation as each member of the Del Pino family learns to understand and deal with each other miles away from each other before any bloodshed is made. Unfortunately the story's flashbacks and difficult time frame loses the reader's interest. The design of each character's leaves me for one almost uninterested and the focal point of religion, as a backdrop is unrealistic and at times annoying. I for one had problems feeling anything for any of the characters especially Lourdes and Celia so called 'grudge' based on political ideology a socialist and a exile butting heads is enough to make you cringe. Pilar is the only character worth reading as she pushes her mother's button and questions everything that Lourdes has given her enough to make the old witch go nuts from communist books to running away to see her forgotten grandmother. No this is what family is really like.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted July 20, 2002

    Dreaming in Cuban

    I recommend this book because, is an excellent story full of vivid imagery, which delves into complicated family dynamics and cultural identity. ¿Dreaming in Cuban¿ tells the story of the Cuban Revolution from the point of view of three generations of women. In this book there is violence, murder, passion, birth and death, but all told in a sort of lyrical and mystical way. I really enjoyed reading this book and I think it is a good novel.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted July 20, 2002

    FOUR WOMEN, ONE 'LIDER'

    Three generations and four women dominate this story of a bewitched family. The setting for Cristina Garcia's first novel is Cuba and New York, where she was born and raised. Celia del Pino is the protagonist, a loyal follower of 'El Lider'. Thru her love letters to an old Spanish lover we find out much about the family. Her oldest daughter, Lourdes, is a fervent anti-communist, who immigrated to Brooklyn and realized the American dream of owning her own business. She is a traumatized rape victim, who feels her ony ally is her father. Thru magical realism she spends several years in conversation with him after he died. Only after he fades away can she finally pay a visit to her aging and dying mother in Cuba. Her daughter, Pilar, was born in Cuba the very year Castro took over. Raised in Brooklyn, punk artist and musician, yet longs for Cuba and her grandmother, who she maintains in psychic contact with. Felicia, the youngest daughter, remained in Cuba, even though she is apolitical. She suffers from bouts of insanity, is divorced, and has three dysfunctional children. Felicia's interest in Santeria, a Voodoo-type religion, gives us the opportuity to learn about it in a colorful and vivid fashion. The author uses an interesting twist of words that keep the reader amused, though melancholic and confused at times. The characterization is superb. Each character demands your attention and their complex relationship makes for good reading

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  • Anonymous

    Posted July 12, 2002

    Real Fiction

    Dreaming in Cuban is the story of a Cuban family that is divided by politics, religion, ideals, and a beautiful sea. Writer Cristina Garcia transmits the feelings of three generations of Cuban women, First of all by Celia whose consuming passion is for El Lider ¿Fidel.¿ Lourdes; she is an immigrant living in New York City, and a proud proprietor of the Yankee Doodle Bakery. Felicia; She can not stay away from man and black magic and Pilar; she is the youngest generation of these three women, she is in a never ending fight with her mother. These character are the most important ones in the story, each of them represent a different prospective of life. The novel is set between Cuba and New York. The character of Celia is a very important one, in the sense of integrity for her believes and the way she hopes for a better tomorrow. Pilar is the future. She wants to go back to her land and also see her Grandmother ¿Celia¿ before she forgets both of them. I recommend reading the book. It will help you understand the power of love.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted July 19, 2002

    Revolutionary Made

    Dreaming in Cuban by Christina Garcia is an intriguing look into a family torn by Fidel Castro's political hold on Cuba. Taking place in both Cuba and the United States the story explores political, geographical, religious, and generational divides among family members. Readers will meet Celia del Pino the matriarch of the family and ever loyal to Castro. Celia's daughter Lourdes living in New York staunchly opposes Castro and has little more warmth for her mother. Pilar, the artistic rebel and third generation, feels a connection to her grandmother and a life she remembers. Readers will travel with the family members dealing with insanity, religious curiosities and even attempted murder/suicide. Garcia's book is definitely worth reading as she is able to capture many of the issues Cuban families experience in this compelling novel.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted July 13, 2002

    A family's struggle

    Dreaming in Cuban is an intricate story about a Cuban family¿s struggling with their devotion to their country, their family, and their lovers. Significant messages are creatively exposed through love letters. Cristina Garcia really did a remarkable job on this novel. A must read for all.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted July 21, 2002

    Jenilyn Martinez LIT2480 VIRTUAL COLLEGE

    Dreaming in Cuban by Cristina Garcia links the lives of three generations of Cuban women: the grandmother, her two daughters, and the granddaughter. Each character escapes reality by some form of fantasy: the grandmother devotes herself to communism, one daughter to Santeria, the other to a bakery in New York, and the granddaughter to punk painting. The book has a great illustration of the Cuban religion: Santeria, using it to show the revolution of the Cuban communism. I highly recommend this book it is a great way to get a truthful knowledge of the Cuban life.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted July 19, 2002

    A detectives EYE for LIT 2480

    ¿Dreaming in Cuban¿ is one of those books that are excessively fun to read. The book tells the story of three parts of one family. This family is divided by their own make-shifted beliefs of what is wrong and what isn¿t. Cristina Garcia¿s style of writing drags the reader to understand what a Cuban family feels. How it is to live in a family that are drawn by their beliefs to go forward and not look back. Three different women reacting differently to the revolution is what Garcia successfully explains. That along with how and why they chose the paths they took and the outcome to their decisions. Wonderfully written giving a unique perspective on what happened in the revolution.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted July 19, 2002

    Odd yet interesting story

    ¿Dreaming in Cuban,¿ a novel written by Cristina Garcia is at first glance a bit bizarre and hard to follow, but that doesn't take away from the fact that it is an excellent book. The difficulty is in trying to understand the myriad of oddball characters. For the average reader who is not from Cuba or perhaps one of the other Caribbean island countries, it would probably be difficult to understand some of the symbolism this book uses. The story is heartbreaking and sad. It captures some of the problems that families struggle through such as different political and religious beliefs and the emotional baggage we carry that interferes with the relationships we have with our family. There is no doubt that it is a sad book, but I am glad I read it and recommend it to everyone. Just remember to keep an open mind.

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