Arts and Literature of Cuba

Cristina García: Cuban Dreams Though she has no memory of living in Cuba—her family left the island when she was just two—Cristina García has made Cuba and the experiences of Cubans the focus of her novels. Of her debut, Dreaming in Cuban , García remarked, “I surprised myself by how Cuban the book turned out to be. I don’t remem- ber growing up with a longing for Cuba, so I didn’t realize how Cuban I was, how deep a sense I had of exile and longing.” García was born in 1958 in Havana. In 1961, to escape the Castro regime, her family immigrated to the United States.

They settled in New York City. Throughout her childhood, García says, her parents—who spoke Spanish at home—told stories about what life had been like in Cuba. They were vehemently anti-Castro. For a time, García consid- ered a career in business or government. But she went into journalism instead. Eventually she became the Miami bureau chief for Time magazine. In 1984 García and her sis- ter went to Cuba to visit their grandmother. The trip turned out to be a pivotal event in García’s life. “For 20 years,” she recalled, “I’d had no con-

Cristina García’s fiction has been translated into more than a dozen languages. Her novels include Dreaming in Cuban, Monkey Hunting , and King of Cuba .

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