Teeming with life and compulsively readable,thepieces gathered together inTheTribeaggregate into an extraordinary mosaic of Cuba today. Carlos Manuel lvarez, one ofthemost exciting young writers in Latin America, employsthecrnica form ? a genre unique to Latin American writing that blends reportage, narrative non-fiction, and novelistic forms ? to illuminate a particularly turbulent period in Cuban history, fromthereestablishment of diplomatic relations withtheUS, tothedeath of Fidel Castro, totheconvulsions oftheSan Isidro Movement. Unique, edgy and stylishly written, The Tribe shows a society in flux, featuring sportsmen in exile, artists, nurses, underground musicians and household names, dissident poets, the hidden underclass at a landfill, migrants attempting to make their way across Central America, fugitives escaping the FBI, dealers from the black market, as well as revelers and policemen in the noisy Havana night. It is a major work of reportage by one of Granta?s Best of Young Spanish-Language novelists. |