Saturday, November 7, 2020

Seven titles about families in exile

Christopher Louis Romaguera is an intern at Electric Literature. He has a monthly column at The Ploughshares Blog.

At Electric Lit he tagged seven books about lost homes and the stories passed from generation to generation, including:
In Cuba I Was a German Shepherd by Ana Menéndez

Ana Menéndez’s In Cuba I was a German Shepherd plays off the joke, “Here in America, I may be a short, insignificant mutt, but in Cuba I was a German shepherd.” It’s a common joke among Cuban exiles who live in Miami and elsewhere in the United States, who mostly only have their stories (and sometimes, their embellishments) of who they were and what they had in Cuba. These eleven short stories share the theme of self-mythologizing, and how people can keep a part of their home (and pass on something of their home to the next generation) through stories.
Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue