One hot afternoon, when the residents of Havana’s Marianao
neighborhood try to avoid the heat and the radio broadcasts the melody of a
calypso, a fifteen year-old boy goes out to the patio hoping for a bit of fresh
air. Sitting under the shade of the trees, he notices a sweaty gardener,
unaware of his presence, fixing the plants, sharpening his machete and
disappearing into the tool shack before the rain falls. This vision awakens
previously unknown sensations in him and the desire for new experiences. Nothing
will be the same after that, from the short erotic novels that he discovers in
his house, to the non-innocent encounters that he will spy on, or the
voluptuous attitude of characters such as his uncle Mirén,
the Landín sisters, the Black Tola,
or the attractive pitcher from the high school baseball team. Everything will
lead him to the joyful discovery of sex. In his initiation, the young man will
learn that eroticism is like a battle full of strategies, a fight without
winners or losers, but for which one must be prepared. His experiences will
open his eyes once and for all to reality and will mean the inevitable end of
his childhood during that year, unforgettable to him, when the entire world
vibrated to the rhythm of the calypso.
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France - Editorial Grasset et Fasquelle