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We have 1 items in our Catalogue that match your search for
9780822338444.
Initials of the Earth
(
Subtitle:
A Novel of the Cuban Revolution)
by
Jesús Díaz
Translated with notes by Kathleen Ross
Foreword by Frederic Jameson
( Paperback)
ISBN:
0822338440 9780822338444
Publisher:
Duke University Press
Price:
£17.99
Published in UK:
09/11/2006
Many critics consider
The Initials of the Earth
to be the quintessential novel of the Cuban Revolution and the finest work by the Cuban writer and filmmaker Jesús Díaz. Born in Havana in 1941, Díaz was a witness to the Revolution and ardent supporter of it until the last decade of his life. In 1992 he took up residence as an exile in Berlin and later in Madrid, where he died in 2002. This is the first of his books to be translated into English. Originally written in the 1970s, then rewritten and published simultaneously in Havana and Madrid in 1987,
The Initials of the Earth
spans the tumultuous years from the 1950s until the 1970s, encompassing the Revolution and its immediate aftermath. The novel opens as the protagonist, Carlos Pérez Cifredo, sits down to fill out a questionnaire for readmission to the Cuban Communist Party. It closes with Carlos standing before a panel of Party members charged with assessing his merit as an “exemplary worker.” The chapters between relate Carlos’s experiences of the pre- and post-revolutionary era. His family is torn apart as some members reject the Revolution and flee the country while others, including Carlos, choose to stay. He witnesses key events including the Bay of Pigs invasion, the Cuban missile crisis, and the economically disastrous sugar harvest of 1970. Throughout the novel, Díaz vividly renders Cuban culture through humour, slogans, and slang; Afro-Cuban religion; and references to popular music, movies, and comics. This edition of
The Initials of the Earth
includes a bibliography and filmography of Diaz’s works and a timeline of the major events of the Cuban revolutionary period. In his epilogue, the Cuban writer Ambrosio Fornet reflects on Díaz’s surprising 1992 renunciation of the Revolution, their decades-long friendship, and the novel’s reception, structure, and place within Cuban literary history.
Review Quote:
“This translation of
Las Iniciales de la tierra
is an exceptional event, and a rare chance to experience Cuban revolutionary literature first-hand.”—Fredric Jameson, from the foreword “Like no other novel, The Initials of the Earth, by Jesús Díaz, vividly depicts the contradictory structure of feeling experienced by a protagonist who sought to closely examine his deep sense of commitment to one of the most loved and hated political events of the twentieth century, the Cuban Revolution. The story, the life of a character closely shaped by the author’s experiences as a committed dissenter bound to explore the very limits of faith, weaves the protagonist’s love for his country as well as for American culture at a time in which such leanings constituted heresy. Kathleen Ross’s translation carefully blends a deep understanding of the author’s idiom with a sense of the drama surrounding his novelistic confessions. The Initials of the Earth thus brings us a front row seat to one of the most riveting accounts of Cuban revolutionary culture.”—Román de la Campa, author of Cuba on My Mind: Journeys to a Severed Nation
