Translation Rights TQE / The Book of Reality

Contemporary Cuban literature is undoubtedly enjoying one of its most stimulating and fruitful periods. Tusquets Editores proudly presents Arturo Arango, narrator and essayist who, with his most recent and ambitious novel, El libro de la realidad (The Book of Reality), will finally make himself known outside of Cuba. In the novel, Arango touches upon one of the most delicate subjects in the recent history of his country, the sacrifice of the present made by a generation for the sake of a future that is both unknown and uncertain.

In the Cuba of the sixties, a group of adolescents, students and high school friends, find themselves immersed in a secret adventure that will change their lives forever. They become part of a guerrilla group that trains physically and mentally in order to extend the Revolution throughout Latin America. Love, family relations, personal projects and wishes will all become irremissibly disrupted by the various and increasingly dangerous phases of their training, some which put their lives in serious danger. But none of that discourages these young people, perhaps because their naïve and undoubtedly excessive faith does not allow them to see the unusual result of their experiences. We are met, then, with a beautiful and complex tale, deeply rooted in reality, about the vulnerability of the human being and the fight against the wretchedness of all that is messianic.

Arturo Arango was born in Manzanillo, Cuba, in 1955. Between 1982 and 1991 he was, successively, editor, chief editor, and director of the magazine Casa de las Américas. He has participated in the creation of various cultural publications, and is currently chief editor of the magazine La Gaceta de Cuba. He is the author of a collection of essays: Reincidencias (Reocurrences) 1987; of the short story collections La vida en una semana (Life in a Week)1990, La Habana Elegante (Elegant Havana), 1995, and ¿Quieres vivir otra vez? (Do You Want to Live Again?) 1997; and of the novel Una lección de anatomía (A Lesson in Anatomy) 1997.