The Happiness Machine (“La máquina de ser feliz”) covers a period from 1980, the year of the refugee crisis and long revolutionary speeches, to Obama´s arrival in Cuba in 2014, and follows Marcel´s life as a young man who aspired only to achieve the best grades and be loved, to the time when he aspired to be president of Cuba, all marked by the trait of racism and by his double life, unconfessable even to the people closest to him, and by the pain that both things cause him. As a teenager, he begins to hatch a plan to ensure his social advancement: he becomes a delegate at his school, starts a political career and discovers his passion for women. His official girlfriend is Eva, the brunette with whom he has a platonic relationship, and his unofficial lover is María Teresa, the blondest girl in town and daughter of the secretary general of the party in Cienfuegos, with whom he will have his first illegitimate child. Marcel is a born social climber, a sort of Julien Sorel from Stendhal´s famous novel “The Red and the Black”, equally charming but much more devious and capable of the worst evils because he has the wrong idea of what it means to be bad. He will get to know the powers that determine the life of the country and will get to know the likes of Fidel Castro and García Márquez. At the same time, he lives surrounded by his ghosts, beings that follow him, pursue him and mark and determine his future. The Happiness Machine is, in conclusion, the story of a young man of great charisma, reminiscent of Tom Ripley, Patricia Highsmith´s great character, willing to do anything to succeed in a Cuba that is forced to reaffirm its revolution and in which large doses of pragmatism and a sense of humour are needed to avoid capitulation.

Call me Cassandra (“Llámenme Casandra”) is the story of Rauli, who is ten years old and an avid reader of classical literature. He was born in the wrong body and can see the future: he already knows that as the years go by he will fight in Angola and that he will die pierced by bullets that distil homophobia. He already knows how his companions will die. And he would like to be called Cassandra. Between childhood and adolescence, the novel narrates the search for an identity in a hostile environment that witnesses the collapse of the dream of the new man and the internationalist utopia. Lyrical and realist at the same time, “Call me Cassandra” reconstructs everyday life in Cuba in the 1970s, with a loving gaze at his characters and a great ability to embed the classic myth and characters of the Trojan War into the history of the Angolan war. A novel of initiation and identity that grabs you from the very first pages.

Young Alejandro and Ismael are doing their Cuban military service in the 1980’s. Both are outsiders because of their nonconformist attitude, sharing their aversion to Cuban rhythms and an enthusiasm for Western rock music, a symbol of freedom and against uniformity. Alejandro devoted himself to illegal cannabis cultivation. When a girl he was in love with informs on him, he is sent to the army. While he tries to obtain a quick release by playing the fool, Ismael takes advantage of the opportunity to transfer to a special unit which enjoys certain privileges. The reader learns about their destinies and about Cuban daily life in the second half of the twentieth century.
All this opens up a historical dimension that attests to the Cuban Revolution and its shortcomings. But Rocanrol also tells the story of those who are nobodies, pushed by the winds of change. For Alejandro and Ismael rock music is an effective means not to lose their own essence. This connects them even after their paths separate. The stories of Alejandro and Ismael write their own narrative within the immense narrative of history. What may at first seem like a witty book about growing up into adulthood, thus becomes charged with the tragedy of lives lived, and transforms into great literature.

In The Black Cathedral (“La Catedral de los Negros”), a couple from Camagüey arrives in a scruffy neighbourhood in the city of Cienfuegos. The father is a Christian belonging to the Holy Sacrament congregation who soon discovers that God has given him a mission: to build a church that surpasses anything previously seen in Cuba. The neighbourhood is a hive of passions and conflicts, and alongside the cathedral that rises day by day in Cienfuegos, a generation grows marked by violence, cruelty and the most extreme selfishness – defects that the characters carry with them well beyond the borders of their neighbourhood, their city, and Cuba itself, as though they could not escape the cursed, nefarious shadow of the unfinished cathedral. The novel opens out into a multiplicity of voices that discuss, explain and complete each other. This is a novel of broken architectures, characters, and narrators. A reflection of what is left when dreams are exhausted.

Sitting in a Lime Tree (“Sentada en su verde limón”) owes its title to a child’s song about a little bird. The novel takes place in the 1990s in Cienfuegos. It is the time of the economic crisis after the collapse of the Soviet Bloc, but this is only the background for an extraordinary love story: the crazy love affair between the eighteen-year-old white Kirenia, who writes poems, and the fifty-five-year-old black Harris, a jazz saxophonist, who originally grew up in the USA and has already played with all the great figures of jazz. The love between the unconventional girl and the angry alcoholic is doomed from the beginning. It is Kirenia who is crushed by it. The story is told by Ricardo, a painter who sells his pictures to tourists for US dollars and is friends with both of them, drinking, smoking marijuana and listening to music with them. In such passages, the text rises to the intensity of a saxophone solo, while in others it calms down to soothing inner monologues, in which the spirits as well as the living have a voice. A book that hurts and at the same time makes you happy.

Based on real records and documents from guerrilla fighters, Guiomar de Grammont’s new novel Crosswords (“Palavras cruzadas”) is a story about the Brazilian resistance movement told through a family that is falling apart over the unsolved crimes of the past. Brazil, 1971: As a young man, Leonardo leaves his home to follow the Guerrilha do Araguaia, a resistance group in the Amazon region. He never returns. 25 years later, Leonardo’s younger sister Sofia goes looking for him, taking with her a mysterious diary of two partisans who describe their secret everyday life and their daily struggle for survival in the depths of the jungle. Only much later will Sofia learn that its authors are her brother and his lover Mariana who, pregnant, has to leave the secret camp on her own. Mariana’s traces disappear in São Paulo, Leonardo’s in the jungle itself. For Sofia, many questions will remain open, but one answer is waiting for her: her niece. As in a crossword, the voices of the different characters flow together, making a forceful claim for clarification and closure, on behalf of all the families whose sons and daughters have disappeared, leaving them to wonder about what might have happened and living lives that can’t escape the past. Writing from Sofia’s point of view, Guiomar de Grammont treats these difficult topics with great sensitivity, leaving the reader deeply moved by the tenderness of her voice.

Set in nineteenth-century Wisconsin and Colorado, Nahoonkara follows the lives of three brothers striving to re-create themselves. While Killian takes care of his sick mother and Eli flees after a conflict with his father, Henry founds a prospering mining town. Featuring differing points of view and beautiful poetic language, this outstanding novel reveals what happens when individual identity collapses.

Peter Grandbois’ poignant debut The Gravedigger is written in the best Latin American tradition. Juan Rodrigo is haunted by the people he buries in his tiny Andalusian village, feeling compelled to pass along their stories. But the truths he reveals don’t always go over well among the surviving. Then his teenage daughter Esperanza falls in love with a gypsy boy, and fate stops at his own doorstep…

Scalpel (“Bisturí”) is a dark novel about loss and vengeance. After becoming concerned about an illness, Santiago’s father consults Dr. Mansano and undergoes medical procedures that ultimately end his life. Santiago, determined to avenge his father’s death, murders Dr. Mansano. Although he acted with great caution, Santiago is forced to flee. On his journey, we learn about the thoughts that cross his mind and the small actions he has to take in order to avoid detection. With the help of his mother, friends, and family, he manages to go unnoticed, but on his return home, he discovers that everything he thinks he knows is, in reality, a lie

In Shared Rooms (“Habitaciones compartidas”) Roque, a professor of Hispanic literature in New Zealand, lives with his family far from his native Mexico. It is a quiet and even monotonous routine. One day he receives an email from Diego Valente, who has been hired by the same university and who, given his imminent arrival in New Zealand, asks for Roque’s advice on how best to acclimatise to his new environment. Diego arrives with the charming Lia and their two children. For Roque and his family, the arrival of Diego’s family seems providential, since they are the first fellow-Mexicans to come and live in the same place where they themselves have been living for the last seven years, and they hope this will bring some fresh air to their lives. However, what looks like a rosy future will become for both couples an almost nightmarish scenario, especially when Roque discovers that Diego brings with him a secret that is a heavy burden not only for him. Shared Rooms is a fascinating novel that, entering into the intricate relationships both within and between couples, explores with rare authenticity the deepest of human emotions: love, fidelity, inner exile and the meaning of our lives, all expressed in very agile prose and with a sharp sense of humour.

The Last Breakfast (“El último desayuno”) is a detective story based on real facts: the murder of a student on a university campus serves as the thread of the plot. Roque, the protagonist, is a Mexican professor at a New Zealand university. He has the impression that the police and his colleagues think he is responsible for the crime. In this situation, it does not help that after separating from his wife he is going through a period of mental instability, nor that he cannot remember the details of his relationship with Sara, the murdered student. While Roque tries to hide his fear and discomfort, he concentrates on finding a solution to all his problems and circumstances: the relationship with his ex-wife and children, his lovers, his role as resident in a foreign country. The author weaves a story of intrigue extending far beyond the detective story, where the real conflict is human frailty itself.

Rogelio Guedea’s latest novel Secret Lives (“Vidas secretas”) tells the story of a perfidious scheme. The Mexican Roque de la Mora teaches Spanish at a university in New Zealand. Although very attracted to his student Natasha, he resists her obvious advances – until he gets a nasty surprise.

The Crime of Los Tepames (“El crimen de Los Tepames”) is the last part of the captivating Colima trilogy. Two brothers are brutally murdered in the usually quiet town of Los Tepames. Abel finds out that some mining companies were quite interested in their land. As he digs deeper, he finds himself in a swamp of murderous corruption from which there is no escape. Once again, Guedea fascinates the reader with his strong language and his outstanding style. The book was among the bestselling books in Mexico’s most important bookstore, Librería Gandhi.

Colima/Mexico: in the heat of an election campaign, the governor’s brother is found assassinated with a 41-calibre bullet. Has he fallen victim to a serial killer or is the opposition party behind it? Based on a true story, the novel 41 paints a merciless picture of present-day Mexico.

In The Brothers Corona (“Conducir un tráiler”), the young Abel Corona goes looking for his girlfriend, taking a lift from a truck driver who is involved in the drugs trade. When he steals money from him, Abel starts fearing for his life. Then his brother Ismael is found dead, and Abel is confronted with an old family feud: a fight over land ending in death. Is he being lured into a trap, to fall victim to revenge?

Reading is a highly enjoyable craft, as Guedea shows in his narrative essay Business: reading (“Oficio: leer”). In the form of short fictional pieces based around the works of well-known writers such as Cioran, Bolaño, Greene, Pessoa, Kafka and García Márquez, he awakens our desire for turning pages.

“I always wanted to write but never had a story to tell. Well for the past six years, I now have it. It is not a story of personal victory, because in a way what I am telling cannot be conquered. Nor is it a factual account, although it runs more or less chronologically. Nor a late attempt at self-literature, though it happened to me. It is nothing more than the history of a cancer. Or two. Or three.”

This is how Mercedes Güiraldes starts her story, letting the reader take part in the ups and downs of her cancer experience: the accidental discovery of a node while watching television with her family, a misdiagnosis that gives her a false sense of security, the warning from a colleague, the search for the right doctor, the first operation. The immediacy and authenticity of the narrative make the reader feel how the author tries to appear strong in front of her children, how the bond with her husband grows, how she celebrates with a party after a successful therapy, and how feelings of pure joy and gratitude turn to sheer desperation and angry despair when fate takes another turn, and when buying a wig.

Facing up to cancer is not an easy task. Writing such an honest and deeply moving book based on this experience is even more unusual. Mercedes Güiraldes surprises with a stark yet luminous book, a journey to the heart of the disease that is synonymous with our times. Nada es como era (“Nothing Is As It Was”) is an autobiographical account that uses the strategies of fiction to put into words a human experience on the edge of the unspeakable.