Caracol Beach
A Novel
Written by Eliseo Alberto
Translated by Edith Grossman

Format: Trade Paperback, 304 pages
Publisher: Vintage
On Sale: November 13, 2001
Price: $13.00
ISBN: 978-0-375-70506-9 (0-375-70506-6)

Winner of the International Alfaguara Novel Prize

A thriller, a tragedy, a perfectly timed farce—Eliseo Alberto’s tale of a mad Cuban war veteran who plots his own extermination is all this more.

Beto Milanés, the night watchman at a graveyard in the Florida resort town of Caracol Beach, is a guilt-ridden Cuban war... Read more >

Mona and Other Tales

Written by Reinaldo Arenas
Translated by Dolores M. Koch

Format: Trade Paperback, 208 pages
Publisher: Vintage
On Sale: September 11, 2001
Price: $15.00
ISBN: 978-0-375-72730-6 (0-375-72730-2)

Translated from the Spanish by Dolores Koch.

Mona and Other Tales covers Reinaldo Arenas's entire career: his recently rediscovered debut (which got him a job at the Biblioteca Nacional in Havana), stories written in a political prison, and some of his last works, written in exile. Many of the stories have... Read more >

The Rastafarians
Twentieth Anniversary Edition
Written by Leonard Barrett

Format: Trade Paperback, 320 pages
Publisher: Beacon Press
On Sale: December 12, 1997
Price: $18.00
ISBN: 978-0-8070-1039-6 (0-8070-1039-1)

The classic work on the history and beliefs of the Rastafarians, whose roots of protest go back to the seventeenth-century maroon societies of escaped slaves in Jamaica. Based on an extensive study of the Rastafarians, their history, their ideology, and their influence in Jamaica, The Rastafarians is an important contribution to... Read more >

Manana Forever?
Mexico and the Mexicans
Written by Jorge G. Castaneda

Format: Hardcover, 320 pages
Publisher: Knopf
On Sale: May 17, 2011
Price: $27.95
ISBN: 978-0-375-40424-5 (0-375-40424-4)

Why are Mexicans so successful in individual sports, but deficient in team play? Why do Mexicans dislike living in skyscrapers? Why do Mexicans love to see themselves as victims, but also love victims? And why, though the Mexican people traditionally avoid conflict, is there so much violence in a country where... Read more >

Solibo Magnificent

Written by Patrick Chamoiseau

Format: Trade Paperback, 208 pages
Publisher: Anchor
On Sale: March 30, 1999
Price: $15.00
ISBN: 978-0-679-75176-2 (0-679-75176-9)

A New York Times notable book of the yearIn Fort-de-France, Martinique, a colorful group of musicians, street vendors, and hopeless disciples, including the author, gather under a tamarind tree to listen to legendary bard Solibo Magnificent spin tales.  Suddenly, in the middle of a raucously entertaining story,  Solibo drops dead.  So entranced and drunken... Read more >

Texaco
A Novel
Written by Patrick Chamoiseau

Format: Trade Paperback, 416 pages
Publisher: Vintage
On Sale: February 24, 1998
Price: $15.95
ISBN: 978-0-679-75175-5 (0-679-75175-0)

Of black Martinican provenance, Patrick Chamoiseau gives us Texaco (winner of the Prix Goncourt, France's most prestigious literary prize), an international literary achievement, tracing one hundred and fifty years of post-slavery Caribbean history: a novel that is as much about self-affirmation engendered by memory as it is about a quest for... Read more >

Breath, Eyes, Memory
A Novel
Written by Edwidge Danticat

Format: Trade Paperback, 256 pages
Publisher: Vintage
On Sale: May 18, 1998
Price: $14.95
ISBN: 978-0-375-70504-5 (0-375-70504-X)

Set in the villages of Haiti and in New York's community of Haitian exiles, Breath, Eyes, Memory is the story of Sophie Caco, who was conceived in an act of violence, abandoned by her mother and then, at the age of 12, is summoned to join in her in the United... Read more >

Butterfly's Way
Voices from the Haitian Dyaspora in the United States
Written by Edwidge Danticat

Format: Trade Paperback, 280 pages
Publisher: Soho Press
On Sale: July 1, 2003
Price: $16.50
ISBN: 978-1-56947-218-7 (1-56947-218-1)

In four sections–Childhood, Migration, First Generation, and Return–the contributors to this anthology write powerfully, often hauntingly, of their lives in Haiti and the United States. Jean-Robert Cadet’s description of his Haitian childhood as a restavec–a child slave–in Port-au-Prince contrasts with Dany Laferriere’s account of a ten-year-old boy and his beloved grandmother... Read more >

The Farming of Bones

Written by Edwidge Danticat

Format: Trade Paperback
Publisher: Soho Press
On Sale: May 7, 2013
Price: $16.00
ISBN: 978-1-61695-349-2 (1-61695-349-7)

A New York Times Notable Book
ALA Booklist Editor’s Choice

It is 1937 and Amabelle Désir, a young Haitian woman living in the Dominican Republic, has built herself a life as the servant and companion of the wife of a wealthy colonel. She and Sebastian, a cane worker, are deeply in love and... Read more >

Krik? Krak!

Written by Edwidge Danticat

Format: Trade Paperback, 240 pages
Publisher: Vintage
On Sale: April 2, 1996
Price: $14.00
ISBN: 978-0-679-76657-5 (0-679-76657-X)

When Haitians tell a story, they say, "Krik?" and the eager listeners answer, "Krak!" In Krik? Krak! Danticat establishes herself as the latest heir to that narrative tradition with nine stories that encompass both the cruelties and the high ideals of Haitian life. They tell of women who continue loving behind... Read more >

Artifacts of the Spanish Colonies of Florida and the Caribbean, 1500-1800
Volume 2: Portable Personal Possessions
Written by Kathleen Deagan

Format: Hardcover, 528 pages
Publisher: Smithsonian Books
On Sale: June 17, 2002
Price: $60.00
ISBN: 978-1-58834-035-1 (1-58834-035-X)

This long-awaited follow-up to Deagan’s first volume on ceramics, glassware, and beads focuses on the portable personal objects owned and used by the residents of Spanish colonial America. These objects are not only of Spanish origin; the collection includes many English, French, Dutch, German, Italian, and American pieces as well. Deagan... Read more >

Notes From the Last Testament
The Struggle for Haiti
Written by Michael Deibert
Prologue by Ti Goave
Introduction by Raoul Peck

Format: Trade Paperback, 478 pages
Publisher: Seven Stories Press
On Sale: October 4, 2005
Price: $22.95
ISBN: 978-1-58322-697-1 (1-58322-697-4)

Notes from the Last Testament, by veteran reporter Michael Deibert, is a riveting narrative account of the events leading up to and including the overthrow of Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. A fearless correspondent and a meticulous researcher, Deibert traces the rupturing of the social-democratic coalition that originally brought Aristide to power... Read more >

Duelo del lenguaje/Language Duel

Written by Rosario Ferre

Format: Trade Paperback, 192 pages
Publisher: Vintage
On Sale: July 30, 2002
Price: $12.00
ISBN: 978-0-375-71384-2 (0-375-71384-0)

"English and Spanish have been at war since Queen Elisabeth sank King Felipe's Spanish Armada in 1588," Rosario Ferré writes in the title poem of Language Duel; "Language carries with it all their fire and power." Ferré explores this tension throughout this explosive collection, which plays with the sensual differences between... Read more >

Cubanisimo!
The Vintage Book of Contemporary Cuban Literature
Edited by Cristina Garcia

Format: Trade Paperback, 400 pages
Publisher: Vintage
On Sale: April 22, 2003
Price: $14.00
ISBN: 978-0-385-72137-0 (0-385-72137-4)

For Cubans, there is nothing more fundamental than music, says Cristina García. No matter what their political persuasion, whether they live in Havana or New York, Miami or Mexico city, Cubans share a sense of their identity through a music that is known throughout the world. Cuban literature is as distinctive... Read more >

Monkey Hunting

Written by Cristina Garcia

Format: Trade Paperback, 288 pages
Publisher: Ballantine Books
On Sale: April 27, 2004
Price: $15.00
ISBN: 978-0-345-46610-5 (0-345-46610-1)

Monkey Hunting follows one family from China to Cuba to America in an emotionally resonant tale of immigration, assimilation, and the powerful integrity of self.

In 1857, when Chen Pan signs a contract that will take him from China “beyond the edge of the world to Cuba,” he has no idea that... Read more >

Sonar en Cubano

Written by Cristina Garcia

Format: Trade Paperback, 336 pages
Publisher: Ballantine Books
On Sale: September 6, 1994
Price: $14.95
ISBN: 978-0-345-39139-1 (0-345-39139-X)

Translated by Marisol Pales.

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... Read more >

Wild Coast
Travels on South America's Untamed Edge
Written by John Gimlette

Format: Hardcover, 368 pages
Publisher: Knopf
On Sale: June 21, 2011
Price: $28.95
ISBN: 978-0-307-27253-9 (0-307-27253-2)

As he did for Paraguay in At the Tomb of the Inflatable Pig (“a raucous blend of history, travelogue, and guide”—Condé Nast Traveler), John Gimlette now does for South America’s far-flung Guianese coast.

Guyana, Suriname, and French Guiana are among the least-known places in South America and, in John Gimlette’s hands, among... Read more >

Dancing with Cuba
A Memoir of the Revolution
Written by Alma Guillermoprieto

Format: Trade Paperback, 304 pages
Publisher: Vintage
On Sale: February 8, 2005
Price: $15.95
ISBN: 978-0-375-72581-4 (0-375-72581-4)

In 1970 a young dancer named Alma Guillermoprieto left New York to take a job teaching at Cuba’s National School of Dance. For six months, she worked in mirrorless studios (it was considered more revolutionary); her poorly trained but ardent students worked without them but dreamt of greatness. Yet in the... Read more >

Looking for History
Dispatches from Latin America
Written by Alma Guillermoprieto

Format: Trade Paperback, 320 pages
Publisher: Vintage
On Sale: March 12, 2002
Price: $16.95
ISBN: 978-0-375-72582-1 (0-375-72582-2)

In the tradition of Joan Didion, V. S. Naipaul, and Ryzsard Kapucinski comes a collection of essays and reportage by Alma Guillermoprieto, perhaps the most highly regarded writer on Latin America.

Guillermoprieto, who contributes regularly to The New Yorker and The New York Review of Books, explores the three Latin American... Read more >

Divine Utterances
The Performance of Afro-Cuban Santeria
Written by Katherine J. Hagedorn

Format: Trade Paperback, 312 pages
Publisher: Smithsonian Books
On Sale: August 17, 2001
Price: $24.95
ISBN: 978-1-56098-947-9 (1-56098-947-5)

In Divine Utterances, Katherine J. Hagedorn explores the enduring cultural and spiritual power of the music of Afro-Cuban Santería and the process by which it has been transformed for a secular audience. She focuses on the integral connections between sacred music performances and the dramatizations of theatrical troupes, especially the state-sponsored... Read more >

The Black Jacobins
Toussaint L'Ouverture and the San Domingo Revolution
Written by C.L.R. James

Format: Trade Paperback, 448 pages
Publisher: Vintage
On Sale: October 23, 1989
Price: $17.00
ISBN: 978-0-679-72467-4 (0-679-72467-2)

This powerful, intensely dramatic book is the definitive account of the Haitian Revolution of 1791-1803, a revolution that began in the wake of the Bastille but became the model for Third World liberation movements from Africa to Cuba. It is the story of the French colony of San Domingo, where the... Read more >

Fidel

Written by Nestor Kohan
Illustrated by Nahuel Scherma and Miracle Jones

Format: Trade Paperback, 192 pages
Publisher: Siete Cuentos
On Sale: September 7, 2010
Price: $13.95
ISBN: 978-1-58322-783-1 (1-58322-783-0)

En los Estados Unidos, a noventa millas de las costas cubanas, el tema de Fidel Castro enciende a la gente: algunos dicen que es un dictador, otros dicen que es un libertador. En Fidel, Néstor Kohan y Nahuel Scherma presentan a una de las figuras sobresalientes del siglo veinte desde la... Read more >

Living Santerķa
Rituals and Experiences in an Afro-Cuban Religion
Written by Michael Atwood Mason

Format: Trade Paperback, 176 pages
Publisher: Smithsonian Books
On Sale: August 17, 2002
Price: $24.95
ISBN: 978-1-58834-077-1 (1-58834-077-5)

In 1992 Smithsonian anthropologist Michael Atwood Mason traveled to Cuba for initiation as a priest into the Santería religion. Since then he has created an active oricha “house” and has initiated five others as priests. He is a rare combination: a scholar-practitioner who is equally fluent in his profession and his... Read more >

Voodoo in Haiti

Written by Alfred Metraux

Format: Trade Paperback, 432 pages
Publisher: Pantheon
On Sale: April 29, 1989
Price: $15.96
ISBN: 978-0-8052-0894-8 (0-8052-0894-1)

By one of the most distinguished anthropologists of the twentieth century, Voodoo in Haiti is a masterwork of observation and description of the lives and rituals of the Haitian mambos and adepts, and of the history and origins of their religion. It is an accurate and engaging account of one of... Read more >

How I Learned English
55 Accomplished Latinos Recall Lessons in Language and Life
Written by Tom Miller

Format: Trade Paperback, 288 pages
Publisher: National Geographic
On Sale: August 21, 2007
Price: $16.95
ISBN: 978-1-4262-0097-7 (1-4262-0097-8)

All over the world there are people struggling to master the quirks and challenges of English. In today's America, many millions of them are Latino—and in this eloquent collection, nearly 60 of the best known contribute fascinating, revealing, often touching essays on the very personal process each went through to achieve... Read more >