I used to ask my children to bury my ashes over Havana if I died
without going back. They pooh-poohed my request, but I insisted.
Yes, they would, they promised.
Summary
A poet and professor intensively recreates a vast
piece of personal and social history as she describes her flight
from her native Cuba amid political turmoil, her struggle for a new
life in the United States and, four decades later, an eventful
return visit to the land of her birth.
SCATTER MY ASHES OVER HAVANA depicts these momentous experiences and
events with a poet's keen language, and in a narrative that stays
refreshingly brief.
This is a book about exile and immigration, about the search for
identity in a new land, and about a woman's hard work in making a
life for herself and her children. It is also a book about finding
home.
Finally, SCATTER MY ASHES OVER HAVANA gives us the tremendous drama
of going home again. Contrary to the title of a great American
novel, going home again is something that all of us can do--and, as
difficult as the encounter might be, it's a personal act that lets
us come fully to terms with ourselves.
Details
ISBN 0976509644, French cover, 6 x 9, 152 pages with photos, Summer 2006You can order this book from
Pureplay
Press by clicking this link:
Reviews, Commentaries and
Interviews
Gustavo Perez-Firmat, Feinson Professor in the
Humanities, Columbia University
"Deeply felt and beautifully written, Olga Karman's memoir
undertakes a probing and unsentimental exploration of the high cost
and moderate rewards of exile. A gem of a book!"
Mirta Ojito, Pulitzer Prize winning journalist
and author of "Finding Manana: a Memoir of a Cuban Exodus"
" 'Who remembers how Havana glowed at night long ago?' Olga Karman
does. And much more, in this poetic, tactile memoir about loss and
the sometimes futile search for home."
Wendy Gimbel, author, "Havana Dreams"
"In Scatter My Ashes over Havana, her evocative memoir of exile
in the late twentieth century, Olga Karman has produced a
portrait of feminine courage in the face of political and private
adversity. To a lively account of the Cuban exile's life in the
United States, she brings a passionate understanding of history and
a subtle eye for its nuances."
Pablo Medina, poet & author of "The Cigar Roller"
"Scatter My Ashes over Havana is a unique story of a Cuban
woman's struggle to live away from her homeland and to assert
herself in the midst of dispossession. With honesty, deftness and
dignity, Olga Karman traces the multiple roles she assumes in her
exile, those of daughter, mother, wife, student, and teacher. Her
return to Cuba, harrwoingly described in this memoir, represents the
triumph of will over circumstance."
Michelle Kearns, The Buffalo News
"For seven years, she worked... to make the pages of her
experience sound as immediate and concise as her poems..."
Complete
article
Buffalorising, Talking Leaves Online
"...Ms. Karman has composed a poetic memoir dealing with exile and
immigration, with the search for identity in a new land, with a
woman’s hard work and struggle in making a life for herself and her
children. The book is, most profoundly, about finding home..."
Complete article
Manuel M. Villaverde, La Voz Católica
"...Su prosa delata a la poeta, y la lectura de
esta obra es a la vez plácida por el magnetismo de su prosa poética, y dramática
porque su historia es la historia del drama de cada cubano; estoy seguro de que
igualmente atraerá a quienes no lo sean, porque lo relatado es universal.
Precisamente por ser quien es la
autora, la parte del drama que cuenta es la parte del drama de todos: una
ilusión, una decepción, un desarraigo, una transculturación, un renacer, un
recuerdo, la búsqueda de raíces…"
Artículo completo
Jorge Guitart, Author Interview for ArtVoice
"...My American dream was 'Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing,'
'Picnic,' Doris Day, 'Tea for Two.' There were
no glitches in my American dream. So what eventually developed was very
surprising to me, and quite unexpected. I was not prepared. Although, at age
20, who is prepared for anything except dreams?..."
Complete article
