''One of Cuba''s most important living playwrights, Abel González Melo is known for a hybrid poetics in which he employs contemporary formal features, such as non-linear storytelling and flashbacks, interwoven with elements from the classical tradition in order to stage the ignoble realities of postmodern life.'' - Lillian Manzor, University of Miami
Born in Havana in 1980, Abel González Melo is a rare example of a modern-day Cuban playwright whose work is performed and celebrated not only in Cuba, but also in the US, the Americas more widely, Europe, and beyond.
Investigating a raft of national and global themes, such as queer sexuality, the dilemma of leaving or remaining, political power and censorship, family dynamics, the ambition and responsibility of the artist, and so-called ''cancel culture'', González Melo''s work is international and universal in scope. The result of a twenty-year collaboration with translator William Gregory that began at the Royal Court Theatre in London, this collection of six plays follows the playwright''s eclectic two-decade career: from his beginning with texts exploring the pulsing underworld of early-2000s Havana in Chamaco and Nevada, through an examination of political turning points and major figures of Cuban history in Weathered and Outside the Game, to his most recent takes on theatre and its intersection with contemporary issues in Tell Me the Whole Thing Again and Abyss.
Complete with an edited introduction by Ernesto Fundora, this volume of selected plays surveys not only González Melo''s oeuvre but also his distinctive stylistic and aesthetic variety, gained from living in both Spain and Cuba.
