The story opens with Augusto Pinochet's coup d'état in Chile. An opponent of the dictatorship, the narrator witnesses the arrest, torture, and death of his fellow activists. In 1974, he went into exile in East Germany and quickly joined a ...
The story opens with Augusto Pinochet's coup d'état in Chile. An opponent of the dictatorship, the narrator witnesses the arrest, torture, and death of his fellow activists. In 1974, he went into exile in East Germany and quickly joined a network of young communists. It was there that he met the daughter of the famous Cuban revolutionary Ulysses Cienfuegos (directly inspired by Fernando Flores Ibarra, leader of the Castro revolution, responsible for the deaths of hundreds of Cuban "counter-revolutionaries"). Desperately in love with her, he agrees to follow her to Cuba to start a family and finally live the communist ideal.
Exalted by the idea of revolution, masterfully led by his terrifying father-in-law, the young man immediately embraces Castro's motto: homeland or death. As his marriage flounders, he gradually discovers the dark side of the regime. The members of the Cienfuegos family live in opulence; the rest of the population is subject to rationing. Every administrative or bureaucratic obstacle is resolved in the blink of an eye at the mere mention of his father-in-law's name.
His friendship with Herberto Padilla enlightens him about the persecution intellectuals face. Exiled from Castro's society by his divorce, he discovers the daily life of the inhabitants of Havana: the deprivations, the secrecy, the nothingness of everyday life. Distrusting everyone, struggling to find a roof over his head, a piece of bread, monitoring his actions, his words, even his thoughts, at every moment. A single obsession guides him, like Reinaldo Arenas or Zoé Valdès before him: to leave the island, to seek freedom, once again.
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