★★★★★ Brilliant novel of the Cuban revolution

El Tiempo Que Nos Tocó Vivir

Jorge C. Oliva Espinosa

The title is difficult to translate into English. The verb tocar means "to touch", but "nos tocó vivir" is idiomatic -- it means something like "It was our turn to live" or "It was our duty to live". And the preterite verb means it was in the past, and is now over and done. Thus the title means something like "The time it was our turn to live," or perhaps "When we had our turn to live."

I read this, probably in 1999, not long after it came out. It is an utterly brilliant novel told from the point of view of an early leader of the Cuban revolution, who later became disillusioned with Castro's perversion of the revolution. There is also a love story woven in there.

As far as I know, it was never translated. I don't know why that is -- it was SO GOOD, surely there are many other Americans who would love it as much as I did. And then it virtually vanished. It is now difficult to get a copy. Neither of my local libraries (the University of Waterloo Library and the Waterloo Public Library) has a copy. I have just ordered a used paperback -- hope that works out.

I have to suspect that it was suppressed because of politics, or perhaps personal danger to the author. But I don't know, and a quick Internet search turned up nothing.

Amazon review

Goodreads review

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