Many critics consider The Initials of the Earth to be the
quintessential novel of the Cuban Revolution and the finest work by
the Cuban writer and filmmaker Jesus Diaz. Born in Havana in 1941,
Diaz was a witness to the Revolution and ardent supporter of it
until the last decade of his life. In 1992 he took up residence as
an exile in Berlin and later in Madrid, where he died in 2002. This
is the first of his books to be translated into English.Originally
written in the 1970s, then rewritten and published simultaneously
in Havana and Madrid in 1987, The Initials of the Earth spans the
tumultuous years from the 1950s until the 1970s, encompassing the
Revolution and its immediate aftermath. The novel opens as the
protagonist, Carlos Perez Cifredo, sits down to fill out a
questionnaire for readmission to the Cuban Communist Party. It
closes with Carlos standing before a panel of Party members charged
with assessing his merit as an "exemplary worker." The chapters
between relate Carlos's experiences of the pre- and
postrevolutionary era. His family is torn apart as some members
reject the Revolution and flee the country while others, including
Carlos, choose to stay. He witnesses key events including the Bay
of Pigs invasion, the Cuban missile crisis, and the economically
disastrous sugar harvest of 1970. Throughout the novel, Diaz
vividly renders Cuban culture through humor, slogans, and slang;
Afro-Cuban religion; and references to popular music, movies, and
comics. This edition of The Initials of the Earth includes a
bibliography and filmography of Diaz's works and a timeline of the
major events of the Cuban revolutionary period. In his epilogue,
the Cuban writer Ambrosio Fornet reflects on Diaz's surprising 1992
renunciation of the Revolution, their decades-long friendship, and
the novel's reception, structure, and place within Cuban literary
history.
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