Little Havana Blues: A Cuban-American Literature Anthology

Editors: Virgil Suárez and Delia Poey

Contributors: Oscar Hijuelos, Rafael Campo, Gustavo Pérez Firmat, Margarita Engle, Roberto Fernández, Dolores Prida, Jose Yglesias

Publisher: Arte Publico Press (1996)

Little Havana Blues is a medley of voices—narrators, essayists and poets—that have come to forge a literary identity within the United States since their parents left Cuba to go into exile. However, this first comprehensive anthology of Cuban-American literature is not a symphony of the exile or immigrant generation and its letters. Instead, these writers are staking their claim on part of the American mosaic, with Pulitzer Prices and other awards in hand. But in their Americanization they are not rejecting their heritage or their Hispanic culture; rather they are Cubanizing, tropicalizing, expanding the realm of American culture and letters. Their vision is inclusive; their sources go deep into Anglo- and Hispano-European tradition and as deeply into Afro-Caribbean and mestizo culture, not to mention their love affair with popular culture and its icons.