Ana Menendez

A young Cuban woman has been searching in vain for details of her birth mother. All she knows of her past is that her grandfather fled the turbulent Havana of the 1960s for Miami with her in tow, and that pinned to her sweater-possibly by her mother-were a few treasured lines of a Pablo Neruda poem. These facts remain her only tenuous links to her history, until a mysterious parcel arrives in the mail. Inside the soft, worn box are layers of writings...

"The Helena is an art deco apartment building that has witnessed the changing face of South Miami Beach for seventy years, observing the lives housed within. Among those who have called apartment 2B home across the decades are a Cuban concert pianist who performs in a nursing home; the widow of an intelligence officer raising her young daughter alone; a man waiting on a green card marriage to run its course so that he can divorce his wife and marry...

Pushcart Prize winner Ana Menendez landed firmly in the literary landscape last year with the hardcover publication of In Cuba I Was a German Shepherd. Reviewers overwhelmingly agree that she is an important new voice in American fiction. In these linked tales about the Cuban-American experience and the immigrant experience in general, Ana Menendez has instantly established herself as a natural storyteller who probes with steady humor and astute political...

The story opens in contemporary Miami, where a young Cuban woman has for years been searching in vain for details of her birth mother. All she knows is that her mother delivered her into the hands of her grandfather, who fled Havana for Los Angeles with baby in tow. The quest for her mother seems hopeless until a mysterious parcel containing writings and photographs arrives in the mail. Along with several trips back to Havana, the daughter fits the...