Abilio Estévez – författare

Abilio Estévez conjures up the melancholy beauty of contemporary Havana with passion and eloquence in this story about a trio of misfits. When Victorio learns that his home is about to be demolished he leaves his job, burns his possessions and takes to the streets. Wandering the city, he meets two people who change his life: Salma, a young prostitute, and Don Fuco, an enigmatic old man who performs as a clown. In the ruins of an old theatre, Don Fuco initiates his new friends into the secrets of poetry and theatre, bringing beauty, magic and exuberance into the pinched lives of Havana's citizens. Distant Palaces is a novel about human resilience and joy in the face of crushing odds. It confirms Abilio Estévez as one of Latin America's most talented and inventive novelists.

Reading Abilio Estevez''s Thine Is the Kingdom is a little like attending a cocktail party blindfolded: a million conversations are all happening at the same time and you have to work to figure out just who''s talking. But this remarkable novel out of Cuba is worth the extra effort. Set in a run-down enclave of pre-Castro Havana known as the Island, the story follows the fortunes of its residents through a magical realist dreamscape of fantasy, history, life, death, love, and the weather. There is the crazy Barefoot Countess; the pastry vendor, Merengue; and the bookstore owner Rolo. There is Miss Berta who lives with her always sleeping 90-year-old mother, Dona Juana, and Irene who lives with her not-yet-out-of-the-closet gay son, Lucio. Professor Kingston, the Jamaican English teacher; Casta Diva, a would-be opera singer; Chavito, the carver of poor imitations of classical statues; Vido, the adolescent voyeur; Mercedes and her blind sister Marta who dreams of Florence--the cast is enormous and cacophonous. The book hopscotches among characters, tenses, first-, second-, and third-person narratives--often within the same paragraph--as Estevez plunges us headlong into the inner thoughts, dreams, and fears of his multitude of dramatis personae:On this page it is best to use the future tense, a generally inadvisable practice. It has already been written that Chacho had gotten back from Headquarters just past four in the afternoon, and that he was the first to notice the coming storm.... The following day, after the events that will soon be narrated had taken place, Chacho will begin to talk less, and less, and less, until he decides to take to bed.... And, as it is best not to abuse this generally inadvisable tense, it is just and proper that we leave Chacho to his silence until such a time as he should reappear, as God wills it, in this narration.In less accomplished hands this hodgepodge of voices, narrative threads, and personalities might have added up to literary bedlam. But there is method in Estevez''s madness as the story gradually emerges; in the meantime the sheer force of his prose and sly commentary on his own inventions carry the reader through this brilliant debut by one of Cuba''s best and brightest new voices. --Alix WilberSkyhorse Publishing, as well as our Arcade, Yucca, and Good Books imprints, are proud to publish a broad range of books for readers interested in fiction—novels, novellas, political and medical thrillers, comedy, satire, historical fiction, romance, erotic and love stories, mystery, classic literature, folklore and mythology, literary classics including Shakespeare, Dumas, Wilde, Cather, and much more. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller or a national bestseller, we are committed to books on subjects that are sometimes overlooked and to authors whose work might not otherwise find a home.

A novel of Havana.With passion and eloquence, master craftsman Abilio Estevez brings to life the mysterious, broken down city of Havana on the eve of the new millennium. Victorio, a lonely, middle-aged gay man, awakes to the news that the ancient palace where he rents a tiny apartment is scheduled to be demolished, leaving him homeless. Wandering the streets in search of a new place to call his own, he meets two unusual people who are destined to change his life: Salma, a young prostitute, and Don Fuco, an eccentric old clown who brings both of them to live in his own refuge, an abandoned theater. In a city riddled with conflict and no longer tolerant of outcasts, the pair find solace in one another and in the dilapidated theater that shelters them, and a renewed joy in their collective abilities to entertain people with their clowning. But when the harsh realities of life intrude on their self-contained utopia, Victorio and Salma are forced back out into the streets, where they struggle to keep beauty and laughter alive.Skyhorse Publishing, as well as our Arcade, Yucca, and Good Books imprints, are proud to publish a broad range of books for readers interested in fiction—novels, novellas, political and medical thrillers, comedy, satire, historical fiction, romance, erotic and love stories, mystery, classic literature, folklore and mythology, literary classics including Shakespeare, Dumas, Wilde, Cather, and much more. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller or a national bestseller, we are committed to books on subjects that are sometimes overlooked and to authors whose work might not otherwise find a home.

Las historias reunidas en Mañana hablarán de nosotros habitan en los confines de ese territorio de anhelos y contradicciones que es la Cuba actual. Las múltiples caras de la Isla son el escenario utilizado por un nutrido grupo de escritores para desarrollar diecinueve cuentos regidos por las ingobernables leyes del amor y del deseo.Con una prosa exuberante que aúna el gusto por el exceso y el cuidado por los pequeños detalles, los autores expresan una decidida voluntad de dejar atrás las "maniobras del secreto" y mirar sin ambages las diferentes expresiones que la sexualidad —y la sensualidad— encuentra en su país. La fascinante mezcolanza de culturas, razas e ideologías sustenta una mirada provocadora e inconformista a la realidad LGTB que convierte este libro en un acontecimiento literario en el panorama de las letras hispanas contemporáneas."Hombres y mujeres que piensan a Cuba desde la sexualidad que no pacta con códigos castrantes, desde la Isla o fuera de ella, son los protagonistas de este volumen (…) Son autores que no tienen que pactar ya con las escaramuzas del secreto, que dejan a un lado las formas en las que, hasta no hace tanto, se debía inducir al lector para que comprendiera de qué se hablaba. El desparpajo, la transparencia, la confesión, son ahora las claves esenciales" (Norge Espinosa)