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Fiction 41
Havana, seedy and decaying, usually figures prominently in
the novels. Padura’s is a hard-boiled yet literary style reminis-
cent of Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett, two
American writers he’s said he admires. In 2005’s
Adios
Hemingway
, Padura describes Conde’s sense of alienation thus-
ly: “He was a . . . private detective in a country with neither
detectives nor private people; he felt like a bad metaphor for a
strange reality.”
In addition to his detective fiction, Padura’s other impor-
tant work includes the 2009 novel
El hombre que amaba a los
perros
(
The Man Who Loved Dogs
). It’s a sweeping account of
the 1940 murder of Leon Trotsky, a communist who’d fallen
out with Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin.
Text-Dependent Questions
1. Which novelist is also known for his masterful study of Cuban music?
2. Who wrote
Three Trapped Tigers
?
3. Name the book that launched the testimonial narrative genre.
Research Project
Interview a grandparent, parent, or other older adult you know about a spe-
cific period in their life. Then write a two-page
testimonio
, in which you try
to tell, in the adult’s voice, his or her story.