Family Album is Ecuadorian author Gabriela Aleman's rollicking follow-up to her acclaimed English-language debut, Poso Wells. Aleman is known for her spirited and sardonic take on the fatefully interconnected-and often highly compromised-forces at work in present-day South America, and particularly in Ecuador. In this collection of eight hugely entertaining short stories, she teases tropes of hardboiled detective fiction, satire, and adventure narratives to recast the discussion of national identity. A muddy brew of pop-culture and pop-folklore yields intriguing, lesser-known episodes of contemporary Ecuadorian history, along with a rich cast of unforgettable characters whose intimate stories open up onto a vista of Ecuador's place on the world stage. From a pair of deep-sea divers using Robinson Crusoe's map of a shipwreck to locate sunken treasure in the Galapagos Archipelago, to a night with the husband of Ecuador's most infamous expat, Lorena Bobbitt, this series of cracked "family portraits" provides a cast of picaresque heroes and anti-heroes in stories that sneak up on a reader before they know what's happened: they've learned a great deal about a country whose more well known exports-soccer, coffee and cocoa-mask an intriguing national story that's ripe for the telling. One of The Millions Most Anticipated Books for 2022! "Ecuadorian writer Aleman's sparkling collection (after the novel Poso Wells) brims with humor and adventure."-Publishers Weekly "Plays with tropes ranging from the Robinson Crusoe story to the classic betrayed-wife setup to wrestle with the impossible-to-decode oddness of human life, which old stories can only hide for so long."-Lily Meyer, NPR "It takes a rare and talented writer to create a cast of characters who each feel so unique, distinct, and whose stories unravel unexpectedly while also feeling inevitable, exactly right. Thoughtful and subversive, with Family Album, Aleman has given us a gift."-Jean Kyoung Frazier, author of Pizza Girl "Divers, adventurers, wrestlers, athletes: a diverse array of people come to light in these stories to insist again and again in challenging the weight of the written letter. Gabriela Aleman's stories inhabit the past to work through its possible versions. Her characters understand that History is a form of desire and the truth is not a house but a patina covering a place that has ceased to exist."-Yuri Herrera, author of A Silent Fury: The El Bordo Mine Fire "Gabriela Aleman's stories unravel a rich and intriguing universe in which nothing, and no one, is what it seems."-Pilar Quintana, author of The Bitch "These stories are like lizards lying on rocks in the sun. When you try to pick one up it darts away and disappears. Sometimes a tail comes off in your hand or the thing bites your fingers and drops of blood decorate the rock. Best read while listening to Julio Jaramillo sing 'Amor sin Esperanza' and 'Hojas Muertas.'"-Barry Gifford, author of Sailor & Lula: The Complete Novels "Gabriela Aleman writes beautiful, sly, enigmatic stories originating in a rogues gallery of real life legends, including El Santo and John Wayne Bobbitt, as well as lesser known and invented souls, all of them struggling against the silent-or is it hostile?-backdrop of Ecuador's past and present. Family Album is a mordantly funny and haunting collection."-Zachary Lazar, author of Vengeance

"Serious but easily readable. The History of Havana employs conventional documentary, written and visual sources and a variety of testimonials from throughout the world to bring to life the complex portraits and challenges of contemporary Havana." -Harry Belafonte Since its founding in 1519, Havana has drawn people from all over the world, including explorers, immigrant, refugees, and the exiled, to create a melting pot of influences and cultures--and a very distinct history. From its colonial roots to its communist revolution, authors Dick Cluster and Rafael Hernandez examine not only the ruptures in the city's life, but its continuities as well. The traditions that make the city unique, like its idiosyncratic combination of territorialism and hospitality or its proclivity for protest, are as much a drive for change as an integral element of its character. Drawing on oral histories and cultural artifacts alike, this history acknowledges the rich and artfully selected stories of the citizens, from their fascinating exploits to their grand successes, to be as significant to the very fabric of the city as its dynamic culture and intriguing politics, making it a superbly well-rounded account of the most alluring city in the Caribbean. With grace and precision, in this updated and revised second edition of their classic history of the city Cluster and Hernandez offer the divergent but productive perspectives of the American and the Cuban in lyrical and accessible prose on Cuba's magical capital. Generously illustrated with black-and-white photographs and maps.

Celebrated Ecuadorian author Gabriela Aleman's first work to appear in English: a noir, feminist eco-thriller in which venally corrupt politicians and greedy land speculators finally get their just comeuppance! "In the squalid settlement of Poso Wells, women have been regularly disappearing, but the authorities have shown little interest. When the leading presidential candidate comes to town, he and his entourage are electrocuted in a macabre accident witnessed by a throng of astonished spectators. The sole survivor-next in line for the presidency-inexplicably disappears from sight. Gustavo Varas, a principled journalist, picks up the trail, which leads him into a violent, lawless underworld. Bella Altamirano, a fearless local, is on her own crusade to pierce the settlement's code of silence, ignoring repeated death threats. It turns out that the disappearance of the candidate and those of the women are intimately connected, and not just to a local crime wave, but to a multinational magnate's plan to plunder the country's cloud forest preserve. Praise for Poso Wells: "The story is a condemnation not only of the corrupt businessmen and the criminal gangs that rule Poso Wells but also of the violence against women that plagues Latin America's real slums."-The New Yorker "One part Thomas Pynchon, one part Gabriel Garcia Marquez, and one part Raymond Chandler, Aleman's novel contains mystery, horror, humor, absurdity, and political commentary ... A concoction of political thriller and absurdist literary mystery that never fails to entertain."-Kirkus Reviews "A wild, successful satire of Ecuadorian politics and supernatural encounters. ... Aleman's singular voice keeps the ride fresh and satisfying."-Publishers Weekly "Poso Wells is ironic, audacious, and fierce. But what is it, exactly? A satire? A scifi novel? A political detective yarn? Or the purest reality of contemporary Latin America. It's unclassifiable-as all great books are."-Samanta Schweblin, author of Fever Dream "Poso Wells is brilliant, audacious, doubtlessly playful and at the same time so dark and bitter. A truly unforgettable book."-Alejandro Zambra, author of Multiple Choice

Making Los Angeles Home examines the different integration strategies implemented by Mexican immigrants in the Los Angeles region. Relying on statistical data and ethnographic information, the authors analyze four different dimensions of the immigrant integration process (economic, social, cultural, and political) and show that there is no single path for its achievement, but instead an array of strategies that yield different results. However, their analysis also shows that immigrants' successful integration essentially depends upon their legal status and long residence in the region. The book shows that, despite this finding, immigrants nevertheless decide to settle in Los Angeles, the place where they have made their homes.

In contemporary Havana, "Do I stay or do I go?" is always the question, and love doesn't necessarily conquer all.
In the wake of her mother's recent death, Marian has been keeping to herself. A cautious, reserved professor of Spanish Literature, she has no idea that her quiet life is about to be turned upside down. When she's asked to review the work of a young, ambitious first-time novelist, she meets Daniel, and their love affair leads her to question both the choices she's made so far in her life and the opportunities she might yet still have.
Theirs is the story of an intense and impossible love, set in today's Havana, a city where there can be no plans, where chance is the order of the day and a fierce sense of loyalty and pride coexists with the desire to live beyond the island's isolation. Their love affair is marked by the ever-present choice of staying on the island or migrating out, a choice Cubans face on a daily basis. The hope of a common future shatters into individual and incompatible goals, as the dilemma of "living or leaving" is confronted with humor, irony, and a dose of melancholy.
"This forthright and lyrical novel tears at our hearts with the dilemmas facing its characters and their city, from a perspective that can come only from a woman writer in in full consciousness of her gender. The fresh panorama of Cuban society today is painted without taboos or constraints, with a faith in human possibilities, and above all with a courage that stems from what is most legitimate and durable in ourselves." -- Nancy Morejon
"Love in Havana, love found and mislaid. In thoughtfully chosen words--just those needed, and no more--Mylene Fernandez offers us a magnificent gift. Her story of lost love and the difficult pursuit of literature is at the same time an X-ray of life in Havana, set in a present where glimpses of the future have not yet arrived."--Leonardo Padura, author of "The Man Who Loved Dogs" and the Mario Conde novels of Havana
"What I liked most about "A Corner of the World," Mylene Fernandez-Pintado's wonderful novel, is how superbly human it portrays its characters. They are neither political or apolitical, and both brave and uneasy, living in a 21st century Cuba that does not easily conform to expectation. "A Corner of the World" is about desires and dreams, and, of course, about love."--Achy Obejas

Making Los Angeles Home examines the different integration strategies implemented by Mexican immigrants in the Los Angeles region. Relying on statistical data and ethnographic information, the authors analyze four different dimensions of the immigrant integration process (economic, social, cultural, and political) and show that there is no single path for its achievement, but instead an array of strategies that yield different results. However, their analysis also shows that immigrants' successful integration essentially depends upon their legal status and long residence in the region. The book shows that, despite this finding, immigrants nevertheless decide to settle in Los Angeles, the place where they have made their homes.

Until recently, the combination of a Cuban old boys' network and an ideological emphasis on "tough" writing kept fiction by Cuban women largely unknown and unread. "Cubana," the U.S. version of a groundbreaking anthology of women's fiction published in Cuba in 1996, introduces these once-ignored writers to a new audience. Havana editor and author Mirta Yanez has assembled an impressive group of sixteen stories that reveals the strength and variety of contemporary writing by Cuban women-and offers a glimpse inside Cuba during a time of both extreme economic difficulty and artistic renaissance.
Many of these stories focus pointedly on economic and social conditions. Josefina de Diego's "Internal Monologue on a Corner in Havana" shows us the current crisis through the eyes and voice of a witty economist-turned-vendor who must sell her extra cigarettes. Others-Magaly Sanchez's erotic fantasy "Catalina in the Afternoons" and Mylene Fernandez Pintado's psychologically deft "Anhedonia (A Story in Two Women)"-reveal a nascent Cuban feminism. The twelve-year-old narrator of Aida Bahr's "The Scent of Limes" tries to make sense of her grandparents' conservative values, her stepfather's disappearance, and her mother's fierce independence. The Cuban-American writer Achy Obejas recreates the strange dual identity of the immigrant, while avant-garde stories like the playful and savvy "The Urn and the Name (A Merry Tale)," written by Ena Lucia Portela, reveal the vitality of the experimental tradition in Cuba. And Rosa Ileana Boudet's "Potosi 11: Address Unknown" is both a romantic paean to a time of youth, passion, and revolution, and an attempt to reconcile that past with a diminished present.

Interpreting the present in light of the past, eleven renowned architects, historians, scholars, preservationists, and urban planners in Cuba and the United States provide a rigorous examination of Havana old and new that provokes exploration of the ways we look at all cities. These authoritative policy makers and thinkers raise issues of how the most important city in Spanish colonial America developed and changed over several centuries and the extent to which it is being restored and preserved today. More than 350 illustrations juxtapose historical colored postcard images of Havana with recent digital color photographs of the same views. The imagery, based on years of exhaustive research and investigation, draws from Cathryn Griffith s collection of more than 600 postcards of Havana from 1900 to 1930, over 3,000 photographs made there during multiple trips since April 2003, and extensive interviews with experts in Havana and the United States."