Travel to Cuba in the company of its finest writers and gain an understanding of its remarkable mystique. The twenty-one stories in this collection some of which appear in English for the first time will take you on an odyssey through the country's rich past to its dynamic present, where it is poised at the brink of immense change. Arranged by the areas of Cuba they illuminate, these stories offer up a rich literary banquet.

Contents:                 

Havanasis / Richard Blanco -- Strawberry and chocolate / Senel Paz -- Paradiso / José Lezama Lima -- In the cold of the Malecón / Antonio José Ponte -- Life on the rooftops / Pedro Juan Gutiérrez -- My Aunt Leocadia, love, and the lower Paleolithic / Calvert Casey -- Internal monologue on a corner in Havana / Josefina De Diego -- My heroic birth / Zoé Valdés -- The dark night of Ramón Yendía / Lino Novás Calvo -- Máscaras / Leonardo Padura Fuentes -- Thine is the kingdom / Abilio Estévez -- The messenger / Mayra Montero -- Ocean blue / Cristina García -- The girl typist who worked for a provincial Ministry of Culture / María Eugenia Alegría Nuñez -- Zapata / Pablo Medina -- Her mother's house / Ana Menéndez -- Don Cayetano, the unreliable / Alfonso Hernández Catá -- Not the truth, not a lie / Uva de Aragón -- Old Rosa / Reinaldo Arenas -- The Lazarus rumba / Ernesto Mestre -- The prophet / Luis Aguilar Leon -- We came all the way from Cuba so you could dress like this? / Achy Obejas.