A true believer is faced with a choice between love for his family and the Cuban Revolution."Daring, tough, and deeply compassionate, Achy Obejas's Ruins is a breathtaker. Obejas writes like an angel, which is to say: gloriously . . . one of Cuba's most important writers." —Junot Díaz, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction"[An] honest and superbly written book." — Miami HeraldUsnavy has always been a true believer. When...

**Winner of The Publishing Triangle’s 2026 Audre Lorde Award for Lesbian PoetryJust in time for Hispanic Heritage Month comes another brilliant bilingual poetry collection by Achy Obejas—a meditation on being a queer mom to 2 sons**These 44 prose poems, artful yet accessible, presented in both Spanish and English versions, immerse us in the boy kingdom that Achy Obejas inhabits with her two sons. They move from the wild and divine spirit of boyhood to the everyday rhythms o...

"[A] superb collection . . . The 18 stories by current and former residents of Havana are gritty, heartbreaking and capture the city." — Orlando SentinelTo most outsiders, Havana is a tropical sin city. Habaneros know that this is neither new nor particularly true. In the real Havana—the lawless Havana that never appears in the postcards or tourist guides—the concept of sin has been banished by the urgency of need. And need—aching and hungry—inevitably tur...

PEN/Faulkner Award Finalist: A "superb story collection" about America and Cuba, escape and return, and history and hope ( Los Angeles Times).Longlisted for The Story PrizeOne of Electric Literature's Best Short Story Collections of the YearIn "Superman," several possible story lines emerge about a 1950s Havana sex-show superstar who disappeared as soon as the revolution triumphed. "North/South" portrays a migrant family trying to cop...

Finalist for the Pen/Faulkner Award for Fiction!Longlisted for the 2018 PEN Open Book Award and The Story Prize!Included in The Rumpus's "What to Read When You've Made it More Than Halfway Through 2017"Selected as one of Rigoberto Gonzalez's Favorite Books of 2017/Critics Pick, LA Times Jacket CopyOne of Electric Literature's Best Short Stor...

A bilingual poetry collection from a Cuban-American writer-activist that explores themes of identity, sexuality, and belongingA unique and inspiriting bilingual collection of lyrical poetry written in a bold, mostly gender-free English and Spanish that address immigration, displacement, love and activism.The book is divided into 3 sections: First, poems addressing immigration and displacement; secondly, those addressing love, lost and found, and finally, ve...

Memory Mambo describes the life of Juani Casas, a 25-year-old Cuban-born American lesbian who manages her family's laundromat in Chicago while trying to cope with family, work, love, sex, and the weirdness of North American culture. Achy Obejas's writing is sharp and mordantly funny. She understands perfectly how the romance of exile—from a homeland as well as from heterosexuality—and the mundane reality of everyday life balance one another. Memory Mambo is ultimately ver...

On New Year's Day 1959, as Fidel Castro seized power in Cuba, Alejandra San José was born in Havana, entering the world through the heart of revolution. Fearing the conflict and strife that bubbled up in the streets all around the new family, her parents took Ale and fled to the free shores of America.Ale grew up in Chicago amid a close community of refugees who lived with the hope that one day Castro would fall and they could return to their Cuban homes. Though Ale was intrigued b...

Achy Obejas writes stories about uprooted people. Some, like herself, are Latino immigrants and lesbians; others are men (gay and straight), people with AIDS, addicts, people living marginally, just surviving. As omniscient narrator to her characters' lives, Obejas generously delves into her own memories of exile and alienation to tell stories about women and men who struggle for wholeness and love.

Latin American noir at its finest. "[A] diverse collection of stories which reflect the harshness and also the brittle brilliance of life in Mexico City."— MostlyFiction Book ReviewsAkashic Books's acclaimed series of original noir anthologies has set a high standard for portraying cities and their neighborhoods in all their dark and violent splendor. Now, " Mexico City Noir surpasses that standard with phantasmagorical tales of double-dealing, co...

DESCRIPTIONThe English-language debut of “one of the most original and entertaining voices in contemporary Mexican literature” (Revista Gatopardo): a collection of surreal, ironic, and madcap stories about the comedy and brutality of life in Mexico.“One of the most extraordinary books invented by northern Mexico to comprehend itself.” —Sergio González RodríguezThe provocateur and cult sensation Carlos Velázquez has earned comparisons to Hunter S. Thompson, Charles B...

"Papi's there, around any corner," says the eight-year-old girl at the heart of Papi. "But you can't sit down and wait for him cuz that's a longer and more painful death." Living in Santo Domingo, she waits for her father to come back from the United States and lavish her with the glorious rewards of his fame and fortune—shiny new cars and polo shirts, gold chains and Nikes. But when Papi does come back, he turns out to be more "like Jason, the guy from Friday the 13th," ...