Carlos Manuel lvarez, one of the most exciting young writers in Latin America, employs thecrnica form - a genre unique to Latin American writing that blends reportage, narrative non-fiction, and novelisticforms - to illuminate a particularly turbulent period in Cuban history, from the re-establishment of diplomatic relationswith the US, to the death of Fidel Castro, to the convulsions of the San 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 tomake their way across Central America, fugitives escaping the FBI, dealers from the black market, as well as revelers andpolicemen in the noisy Havana night. It is a major work of reportage by one of Granta's Best of Young Spanish-Languagenovelists.
'There is magic in these pages...[T]his book tells the actual story of Cuba as it exists today.'- Jon Lee Anderson
'lvarez does not try to instruct or speculate. He does not write on whether the Revolution succeeded or failed. He doesnot determine whether the leader was a hero or a tyrant. His book is not an explanation: it is ... the history of a countrytold through its people.'- Mara Teresa Hernndez, AP News
Carlos Manuel lvarez, one of the most exciting young writers in Latin America, employs thecrnica form - a genre unique to Latin American writing that blends reportage, narrative non-fiction, and novelisticforms - to illuminate a particularly turbulent period in Cuban history, from the re-establishment of diplomatic relationswith the US, to the death of Fidel Castro, to the convulsions of the San 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 tomake their way across Central America, fugitives escaping the FBI, dealers from the black market, as well as revelers andpolicemen in the noisy Havana night. It is a major work of reportage by one of Granta's Best of Young Spanish-Languagenovelists.
'There is magic in these pages...[T]his book tells the actual story of Cuba as it exists today.'- Jon Lee Anderson
'lvarez does not try to instruct or speculate. He does not write on whether the Revolution succeeded or failed. He doesnot determine whether the leader was a hero or a tyrant. His book is not an explanation: it is ... the history of a countrytold through its people.'- Mara Teresa Hernndez, AP News
Carlos Manuel lvarez divides his time between Havana and Mexico City. He was included in Bogot39's best LatinAmerican writers under 40 in 2017 and in Granta's Best Young Spanish Novelists in 2021. The Tribe, his first book,appeared in 2017 with Sexto Piso. He is also the author of two novels, The Fallen (Fitzcarraldo Editions, 2019), and FalsaGuerra (forthcoming with Fitzcarraldo Editions).
‘There is magic in these pages…[T]his book tells the actual story
of Cuba as it exists today.’
— Jon Lee Anderson
‘Álvarez is very good on the absurdist rituals of zombie
totalitarianism…The Tribe vividly explores the more offbeat milieus
and people of an extended Cuba.’
— Lorna Scott Fox, TLS
‘A journalistically rigorous picture of Cuban life, The Tribe
is characterized by the gaps between Álvarez’s subjects. Using
interviews and on-site reportage, Álvarez profiles people from
various socioeconomic backgrounds, with contrasting political
affiliations. The sketches he compiles demonstrate a wide range of
experiences and perceptions of Cuba. Álvarez allows the
juxtapositions between these profiles to reveal a country that
looks different from person to person.... A nation is, after all,
nebulous— the only way to make an honest portrait is to approach it
from myriad perspectives. In The Tribe, the resulting mosaic is
rich for its nuance and contradictions.’
— Morgan Graham, Chicago Review of Books
‘In a stylish set of profiles now collected in a book, the Cuban
journalist and novelist Carlos Manuel Álvarez ... notes that his
generation was the first to grow up knowing that the advantages of
the revolution, including free education, wouldn’t guarantee them a
decent living. The black market and trafficking businesses run by
students represented major cracks in the revolutionary way of life.
He has harsh things to say about his country, noting “our Cold War
mindset, our deeply ideological, sentimental education, a boundless
bureaucracy, a ravaged social infrastructure”, but also writes
about what the revolution promised and lost sight of.’
— Rachel Nolan, London Review of Books
‘Àlvarez has smuggled an important ethnographic work inside the
form of an entertaining and well-written crónica.’
— Alex Payne, Buzz Magazine
‘Álvarez does not try to instruct or speculate. He does not write
on whether the Revolution succeeded or failed. He does not
determine whether the leader was a hero or a tyrant. His book is
not an explanation: it is …. the history of a country told through
its people.’
— María Teresa Hernández, AP News
‘That rarest of books about a people that achieves a restorative
function without idling in a documentarian mode, The Tribe’s gift
to its subjects is not raising them as a hot topic, but by
preserving their dignity in spite of the headlines.’
— Words Without Borders
‘This is one of those books you'll read in a single sitting.
Conveying readers to the turbulent landscapes of Cuba's recent
political past, it offers a refreshing assessment of the country
outside of typical historic tropes, giving voice to ordinary
Cubans, from artists and nurses to underground musicians and
dissident poets.’
— Lucy Kehoe, Suitcase Magazine
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